Hardcover Paranormal Romance
by badjujube
Summary: Edward has an issue with Bella Swan that can't be found in the employee handbook. AU, goofy. Complete.
1. Infuriating Bookstore Jerk w4m

**Infuriating Bookstore Jerk…w4m******

_**Date: 2011-9-18 , 7:35 PM PST**_**  
><strong>_**Reply to: .edu**_****

_Dear Uptight Asshole At My Local Bookstore,_

_(You know who you are)_

_I was coming out of a job interview in the store you work in and I accidentally bumped into you outside the manager's office. _

_Not my fault, by the way. You were the one skulking around in the stockroom. You ever thought about making some noise when you walk around? It would save you the discomfort of having to make physical contact with women who are repellent to you. Which is probably all of us, given the ridiculous expense and quality of your clothing and the amount of grooming you clearly engage in. You obviously use manscara; no one has eyelashes like that without some help from L'oreal. _

_Anyhow, I accidentally bumped into you and you gave me a dramatic scowl and leapt backwards into the supply cabinet as if I had leprosy or something. I was about to say as if I had exposed myself to you__,__ but if I'd had a penis it probably would have been more to your liking. (see above where I determine your sexual orientation)_

_It was then that I realized that I knew you from somewhere__,__ and another look at your pasty white face and meticulous clothing refreshed my memory. Ironically, it was the last time I'd been treated this rudely. Your immature behavior had "high school" written all over it__,__ and I realized that you and I actually went to high school together for all of a day. I distinctly remember walking into my junior year biology class on my first day at a new school only to see my assigned partner –clearly quite the social success himself given that he was the only one without a partner and the other students gave him a berth worthy of rancid skunk vomit – shuddering and covering his mouth and nose as if to prevent himself from vomiting at my mere presence._

_Then the next day you were gone. Rumor had it that you had been accepted at some fancy music school where you could clearly hang out with a higher caliber of people. Obviously, it set you up for success since you are now a supervisor in a book store. Congrats. Your parents, who actually seem like really nice people despite having spawned a world-class asshole, must be so proud._

_What in the hell is your problem, dude? Whatever it is, you might want to get over it because I just got a call from your manager and we are co-workers now. I look forward to lots more of your nasty attitude and theatrics to brighten up my workday. Hopefully I'll pick your name when we do Secret Santas this Christmas. I have this great scarf that I made for my ex-boyfriend that he gave me back when he fell in love with his cousin. It only smells a little bit like wet dog._

_Yours,_

_Needs This Job But Doesn't Need Your Crap in Forks_

_**a/n: Hi! This originated in the Twilight of Craigslist contest where this part won 2nd place for Best Canon/AU. (Check out my cool banner Time_Lights made for me at my blog!) This time it's actually beta'ed, though, which I think adds. The lovely and tolerant Betham did the honors. **_

_**It will be a multi-chapter story, I will post the next two today. Then I will only post weekly, I don't know what days; it depends on how lazy I am. Thanks for reading! xoxo JuJu**_


	2. Hostile Work Environment

"Edward, can you come to the front registers?" Jessica's voice rang out over the PA, interrupting the light rock that Ryan, my manager, has a preference for. Days when he worked tended to be musically challenging for me. Honestly, I have heard "Wind Beneath Your Wings" way more times than I think is reasonable.

I put away the books I had in my hands and sighed. Jessica was constantly calling me up to the front of the store on little or no pretense. She had decided that I was just shy and needed some encouragement in order to ask her out and/or get it on with her. In reality, I just really wasn't interested. She read Nicholas Sparks novels, for Christ's sake! How do I get past that?

"Your brother is on the phone," Jessica said to me with a smile. I gave her a brief "thank you" and went down to the far register.

"Emmett. What's so important that you have to call me here?" I hissed at my brother while turning away from Jessica.

"What, you worried you're not going to get promoted to head manager and get your own clipboard?" Emmett laughed. I could hear the sound of the TV behind him. Emmett has a serious television problem. He must watch about twenty hours a day.

"What do you want? Isn't there a 'Hogan's Heroes' marathon that you're missing?" Emmett sucked in his breath, and I could hear him checking the channel guide before he realized that that I was lying.

"Don't be a dick. Bob Crane is nothing to joke about," Emmett warned. "I have two things to tell you. Do you want the good news or the bad news?"

"The bad news," I said, nervously. I was telling myself that it couldn't be worse than what had already happened today, but I lie to myself sometimes.

"_Of course_ you want the bad news," Emmett chided. "That's because you are a fundamentally pessimistic person. You know, things wouldn't seem as bad if you just tried to have a more positive attitude about life."

"Emmett. What's the bad news?"

"No. Forget your negative world-view." Emmett was getting worked up. Clearly, he'd been watching Dr. Phil. "I'm going to give you the good news first."

"Fine. Just tell me what you called for and let me get back to work." I looked over my shoulder at Jessica. She was ringing up a customer and trying to eavesdrop on our conversation.

"Well, the good news is, Rosie isn't mad at you anymore about the Charger."

"I didn't do anything to the Charger," I responded. "You're the one who threw the football into the garage."

"Yeah, well, she's not mad about it anyway." I rolled my eyes.

"What changed her mind?" I asked.

"Well, it's the bad news," Emmett said hesitantly.

"Jesus, Emmett. Can you just spill it so I can get back to work?"

"Remember how Chief Swan had that heart attack last month?" Emmett blurted out. "His daughter's moving back home to take care of him."

"I know," I responded. "I just climbed up the wall of the stockroom backwards to get away from her."

"She came _there_?" Emmett's voice got really loud and I glanced over to Jessica again. She was busy helping a customer and didn't appear to have heard Emmett. Which was weird, because I swear they could hear him in Portland.

"Yeah, she interviewed for a job here," I sighed. "She'll probably get it, too. Ryan would hire an illiterate kleptomaniac if she was pretty."

"How are you going to…" Emmett paused, and I realized too late what I had done. "Wait, did you just say she was pretty?"

"Empirically speaking, I think four out of five teenage boys would call Isabella Swan 'pretty,'" I said, as dryly as I could.

"I just haven't heard you say anyone was 'pretty' since…I guess…1953. You told Rosie that Audrey Hepburn was prettier than her after you saw 'Roman Holiday,' remember?"

"Yeah, Emmett. Thanks for bringing it up." I turned around to see Jessica staring at me. Damn! She must have heard what I said about Bella Swan, too. "Listen, I have to go. We'll talk about it tonight, OK?"

"Alright," Emmett agreed. "Just don't forget to grab the new 'Entertainment Weekly' for me. There's an article about the cast of 'House.'"

"Sure thing," I said, trying to avoid Jessica's glaring eyes. "Just don't tell Rose what I said about Bella Swan, OK? I can't replace some of those records again."

I hung up the phone and tried to escape back to the Business section, but Jessica caught me.

"Edward," she called, in that really fake, sweet voice.

"What's up?" I tried to look really busy, glancing at the section I'd been working on.

"I heard you mention Bella Swan," Jessica said. "I didn't know that you two knew each other! She and I were like best friends in high school!"

Surprisingly, she seemed to be telling at least a quasi-truth. I could see images of Bella and Jessica together in Jessica's head. Eating lunch at Forks High, and at what seems to be a dance, dressed up and talking to each other in a balloon-infested gym.

Another strike against the dreaded Miss Swan. Not only does she smell like the vampire equivalent of bacon and have a void where her thoughts should be, but she's "BFFs" with Jessica. My co-worker is either the most vapid, insecure woman in the continental US, or the tallest, most sexually precocious toddler.

"I don't really know her," I said to Jessica. "Emmett was just filling me in on the latest gossip." I gestured to a waiting customer and escaped back into the shelves, away from Jessica's interrogation.

Unfortunately, Ryan was lying in wait and - that other shoe I was expecting to drop? It does.

"I have a trainee for you," he said, bouncing in his shoes the way he does when he's pawning his work off on me. "Isabella Swan. She starts Monday. Smart kid." Ryan reached over to move a book that he thinks is out of place. Unfortunately for him, "S" comes before "T". So I move it back.

"About that, Ryan…" I need to tell him that I am going to have to quit, so that I don't eat the new employee. I have to come up with a compelling story and I hadn't had a chance to think about it yet.

"Unless you think that Angela is ready to do some training?" Ryan didn't really care, honestly. He just wanted to get out of here before 4:30 so that he could catch his hot neighbor at the mailbox.

"Yeah, I think Angela could do a lot of it," I answered. This gave me time to collaborate on a good story with my family. At the least, one that isn't made up by Emmett at the last minute and sounds ludicrous. Like the time he told all the people we knew in Minnesota that we were moving to San Francisco for the Summer of Love. And fifteen people wanted to go with us. I was stuck in that Volkswagen bus for five days with nothing but people reading from "Siddhartha" and the smell of patchouli to keep me draining people like human Yoo Hoos.

"Great," Ryan said. "I'll have Angela get started and you can just fill in the blanks, okay?"

I nodded and got back to stocking the shelves. I was feeling a little sorry for myself, having to quit this job. Despite the fact that my boss was an idiot and Jessica was sexually harassing me with her mind, I liked this job. I got to work with books, the people who came in were generally a little smarter, since they could usually read, and I liked _some_ of my coworkers. Angela's actually pretty cool.

God Damn Bella Swan! This was the second time I'd had to rearrange my life to avoid draining her like a cold soda on a hot day, and it irritated me. The last time this happened, I ended up having to live up in Alaska with my skeevy cousins for two years, speaking of getting mentally groped on a daily basis.

I should be clear that not all my cousins were unpleasant to be around - mostly just Tanya, the oldest. Kate, the third sister, was pretty pleasant, and she and I would come up with creative ways to waste time - like making a gigantic Mahjong set out of rocks and then playing with the tiles upside down, like a huge game of memory. I know it sounds dorky, but it's not like there are endless opportunities for entertainment in Alaska. There are only so many moose you can eat, especially since they're like the state animal.

Anyway, I was not looking forward to having to uproot my life just because Bella Swan smells like heaven. So I was a little more broody than usual when I got off work. And then I remembered that Rose had her support group at the house that night.

Fuck my endless life.

I'm kind of a jerk to complain about her doing something so altruistic, but her group drives me nuts. She hosts this support group for women who have been abused, and they get a little…strident. Especially since I have an alleged penis.

They're cool with Carlisle since he's all "I'm a caring doctor and I ooze sincerity", and Emmett makes them cookies and sucks up like a bitch, so he's usually not the target of their ire. That leaves me, although I have never once abused a woman, unless you count all the nasty stuff I've said to Rose and the cousins. And Jessica. And all the other annoying women I've encountered in my century of reading the minds of every woman I've ever come in contact with. Oh, and the women I killed in the 1930's. _And_ the drunk teenager I locked out of the concert hall in 1980 because she yelled "Free Bird" during a Pink Floyd concert.

I know this _sounds_ like a lot, but you try being alive for as long as I have and not stepping on a few toes.

Ok, maybe I deserve some of the man-haters club's wrath. That doesn't mean that I'm not going to continue to switch their coffee out with decaf when Rose isn't looking, and let Esme's dog, Renfield, lick their cookies.

But I was surprised to see the driveway wasn't full of Saturns and Honda Civics when I got home.

Emmett met me on the porch. "Rose is moving her group to the Vet's center." He grinned at me.

"Really?" I asked. "That's nice of her." I was perplexed by Rose's niceness. Something was up. Emmett and I sat down on the porch.

"Yeah, she's really upset about this Swan situation," Emmett said, slapping his thigh and calling Renfield. The drooly little bastard came running out to Emmett, but then he decided to chew on my Ferragamos instead. Typical.

"Rose doesn't want you to go again. She said it's really boring without you." I listened to Emmett's thoughts to see if he was telling the truth about Rosalie. Which he was. Weird.

"Well, you _are_ kind of a dullard," I said, pushing the dog away with my foot.

"At least I'm not getting chased off by a girl," Emmett answered. "That's pretty weak." Emmett appeared to think for a minute. I assure you that "appear" was the operative word here. There was no way he was really getting any heavy lifting done in there.

"Why don't you just try to get her fired?" Emmett suggested. "You know, try to catch her doing stuff like texting or taking long breaks."

"What if she doesn't _do_ that stuff?" I asked.

"Everybody does that stuff," he responded. "Come on man, you're a vampire! You can't let a teenage girl push you around like this!"

"Yeah," I said, getting indignant. Emmett had a good point. I'm a vampire. I'm the world's deadliest predator. I'm letting a girl tell me what I can and can't do?

Forget that. I decide I'm going to show Bella Swan who's boss.

Carlisle pulled up into the driveway and got out of his car, looking at me sympathetically.

"Edward, I suppose Emmett's told you what's happened." Carlisle leaned against the porch rail and petted Renfield.

"Yeah, but we have a plan so Edward doesn't have to leave," Emmett interjected.

Carlisle looked at us skeptically. "I hope you two aren't planning on doing anything untoward to the Swan girl."

"No," I said, faking horror. "Carlisle, you know we would never do anything to harm an innocent girl. Frankly, I'm hurt that you would suggest it." I tried to look indignant.

"I'm sorry, Edward. It's just that Bella Swan is making a sacrifice for her father, coming back from college like this to help him. I admire her devotion to him."

I_ knew_ it was going to be better for Emmett and I to keep our plan to ourselves. Carlisle totally didn't care that Bella Swan wanted to ruin my life.

"Emmett's going to steal clothes so I can get used to her scent," I blurted out, nudging Emmett so he'd go along with it.

"Yeah, and we're going to offer to help her out around the house," Emmett said. "You know, since the chief isn't doing well." See? This is why it pays to collaborate with Emmett on our stories ahead of time. Now I was going to end up mowing her lawn and helping her put up Christmas lights. Damn Emmett!

But then I decided that the stolen clothing thing isn't such a bad idea. Maybe I can be at work with her without wanting to slurp her like a socialite with champagne.

So I went to work on Monday, designated Operation "Pink-Slip the Swan" Day, having just spent the last twenty-four hours with one of her t-shirts wrapped around my head, with a note from Carlisle stating that I have a medical condition that may make it necessary for me to leave suddenly. Why he needed to say I had diarrhea, I don't know. It might have been at Rose's suggestion.

I spent the first two hours of my shift looking for her anxiously, but when she does come in she ends up having to spend forever in Ryan's office doing paperwork, so I was about as anxious as a vampire gets, waiting for her to come out.

When she does, and Ryan introduces us, she managed, once again, to surprise me.

I didn't have to keep my hands full so I didn't have to touch her because she didn't offer her hand for me to shake.

I didn't have to position myself on the other side of anything so she doesn't get too close; she stayed a good ten feet away from me

She seemed completely disinterested in me. All the stuff I spent the last three days planning so that I could avoid her attempts at social niceties were a complete waste of time, because Bella Swan seemed to be just as anxious to avoid me as I was to avoid her, which is weird because I'm like…ultra-hot. It almost hurt my feelings. Silly, I know.

Oddly, this continues. Bella, enigma that she is, actually seemed kind of…indifferent to me.

Perplexing.

Then I began my clever campaign to get her fired. Which I figured will incite some sort of response. Except that it didn't. Each time I left a little envelope with her name and a half-assed write-up on her locker I waited but…no response.

Every time I ignored her in the break room, no response.

Bringing in coffee for everyone but her? Nothing.

Denying her time off request for no good reason? Nada.

What does it take to make a girl feel unwanted? Young girls are supposed to be more insecure than that. The biggest gesture I get back from her is the time she rolls her eyes at me when I insist upon her clocking out to take a personal phone call. An eye roll. That's it.

Ridiculous. What did she have? Iron self-esteem?

About a month of this and two things start to happen. First, I start getting used to her appallingly good smell. Second, I get called into Ryan's office.

He dropped a pile of papers on the desk and looked at me expectantly.

"What?" I asked, shrugging.

"These are Bella's write-ups. You realize that you've written her up seven times?"

"That's part of my job, right? Making sure people are following the rules."

"Yeah, Edward, but I think you might have gone a little overboard here," he said, picking up the one from the top of the pile and looking at it.

"You wrote her up for wearing black nail polish?" he asked.

"This is a book store, not Hot Topic," I said. He shook his head and looked at the next one.

"Giving unauthorized discounts?" he asked. I nodded vehemently.

"That was a _retired_ elementary school teacher. There's no reason to give her the educator discount."

"Fraternizing?" he asked. "Who was she talking to?" I looked down.

"You," I mumbled. Ryan looked at me in surprise.

"Me?" he laughed. "You wrote her up for talking to _me_?" Ryan shook his head. "Edward, these are ridiculous. She's a good employee. I know you don't like her, but this is silly." Ryan took the stack of write-ups and tore them in half.

"Lay off," he said, looking me in the eye.

"Alright," I said. "But don't blame me when this place goes to hell." I got up to leave. Clearly, the "getting Bella to quit" plan wasn't working anyway.

"One more thing," Ryan said as I was leaving. I paused in the doorway.

"Next Friday is Halloween," he said. I raised my eyebrow at him, waiting for him to continue. "I expect you to wear a costume this year. That whole, 'I'm a book store employee' thing isn't going to fly this time. It's for morale, Edward." I nodded. "And let Bella know about wearing a costume, ok?"

I nodded again, resentfully. I hate Halloween. It's always just an excuse for Jessica and her ilk to dress slutty and get no work done. One thing I can say for the inscrutable Miss Swan is at least she dresses modestly. I've looked.

I found her in Literature, talking to a customer. She was explaining epistolary novels and holding "Lady Susan" and "Dracula." Funny, right?

I waited until she was finished talking. She saw me waiting and looked at me warily.

"Hi," she said. Her face looks really tense. I guess mine would too if I were getting written up all the time.

"Bella…" I felt nervous talking to her. I reminded myself that I'm a vampire and getting intimidated by a young woman is wimpy. "I just wanted to let you know that next Friday is Halloween." As soon as it left my mouth I realized how dumb it sounded.

She nodded carefully, quirking her head at me slightly. "Yes, yes it is Halloween," she answered slowly. "Did I tell someone it wasn't?"

"No, I mean, you're working that day and Ryan expects us to dress up," I added. She nodded again.

"Are there rules around it? I mean, are there guidelines so I don't mess it up?" I couldn't tell whether she was being cautious or snarky. I suspected a little of both.

"No," I frowned. "Just use good judgment." She smiled wryly.

"Ok." She turned back to the books she was reshelving and mumbled: "I guess I'll find out when you write me up for wearing the wrong costume."

I paused. I wanted to get on her case for "talking back" or "mumbling back" or whatever, but it was right then that I saw Angela and Ryan giggling over the monitor behind the registers. Which would have been no big deal, but then Angela shot me a glance and I could see in her head an image of me, only exaggeratedly pale and creepy, dressed in a tuxedo and clinging to the ceiling in the stockroom. Wearing makeup. What the…?

Ryan looked up when he saw me coming, and waved me over.

"Edward, you gotta see this," he turned the monitor towards me and I found myself looking at a Craigslist ad.

Bella Swan. It had to be. She had posted a "Women for Men" ad the day she came in to interview.

"Manscara?" I practically shrieked. "Is that even a thing?" Ryan and Angela laughed. Angela had the decency to feel guilty about making fun of me.

I looked back to where Bella was in the store, and then back at the ad. "She thinks I'm gay?" I huffed, to my co-worker's amusement. How could she so misunderstand me? Although, clearly she had picked up on the discomfort I felt at her presence. I had no idea she would so misconstrue it. And frankly, I was a little insulted that she thought I was gay. Did that mean…?

I looked at Angela and Ryan. "Do you guys think…?" They looked at each other nervously, their laughter forgotten.

"Well, I…" Angela looked down at her hands and then glanced at me. "You never talk about having a girlfriend…"

"Yeah, but have I ever talked about having a _boyfriend_?" Angela flinched a little at my tone. I was getting hysterical.

"Thanks for showing me, guys…" I wandered back into the store. The only thing I could do for damage control is make sure Emmett never, _never_ saw the ad.

I had to admit that I was a little perturbed that Emmett wasn't more sympathetic to my troubles with our scheme. He actually was pretty amused when I told him about my conversation with my boss. Also, I told him how I overheard Bella calling me Ednerd and Repressedward.

"Whose side are you on, Emmett? She's the enemy, right?" Emmett just kept laughing.

"Dude, I just admire her spunk. Plus, you haven't had to lose your precious job and you haven't lost control and drained her. It just doesn't seem as bad as we thought it was going to be."

I grudgingly admitted that he was right. She really wasn't as big of a pain in the ass in my life as I initially thought. But that didn't mean that we were suddenly going to be friends or anything.

Emmett talked me into wearing his Star Trek uniform to work on Halloween, and he even came in an hour into my shift to make sure I didn't chicken out on the Spock ears.

"Where's Public Enemy Number One?" Emmett asked, leaning on the top of one of the shelves.

"Not here yet," I answered, putting away a self-help book and leaning on the low bookshelf with him to watch the door.

"Well, at least you can write her up for being…" Emmett looked at his watch. "Two minutes late, right?"

I am just about to remind him that I am not allowed to write her up anymore when she walks in.

Clearly she was late because she was getting into her costume. But I don't care because _her costume?_

She's wearing this Victorian-looking black dress with…remember how I said she always dressed pretty demurely?...some kind of corset that makes her breasts look…Jesus, I can't even believe I'm thinking about her breasts...but they look _that _great.

Her hair was down around her pale shoulders and she's had all this dark eye makeup and red lipstick and…fuck me, fake blood on the corner of her mouth and fangs and Bella Swan was dressed up as a vampire and she looked…sexy and adorable and if I _had _drool I would have been drooling.

I realized I was staring only when Emmett jabbed me for the seventh time and I looked at him with this "deer about to get killed by a vampire" look. He chuckled.

I pointed to Bella and stared at Emmett and he laughed harder. I looked back at her and she still hasn't noticed that I was having a "moment" with her. I looked back at Emmett, still pointing, wide-eyed.

Emmett continued to laugh and he slapped me on the back and choked out, between spasms of hysterical laughter: "It's too bad you spent the last month being a dick to her, huh?"

It is only then that I realized how well and truly fucked my endless life was.

**a/n: Thank you to the sublime and lovely Betham for making some sense out of all this! I should have mentioned before that this is not going to be drabbles, except maybe they're the kind that only come out once a week and are two thousand words. It just didn't make sense for me to NOT publish what was already posted on the contest page. That would be cruel. And I'm not cruel. Usually. Thanks! Xoxo JuJu**


	3. Satan'sMySupervisor

**Satan'sMySupervisor**

_**about me: I'm 20, work in a bookstore where I have the worst supervisor ever and this Twitter feed may someday be used in my defense at a murder trial.**_

**Satan'sMySupervisor**Satan wrote me up for wearing open-toed shoes today. I wonder, is he jealous of my polish color?

_9/23/2011 6:57 PM_

**Satan'sMySupervisor** Satan accused me of leaving food in my locker. Like everyone else here does. WTF? #asshole

_9/27/2011 10:04 PM_

**Satan'sMySupervisor**** AngelBBQ** Is Satan working today? I was hoping to get through the day without homicidal rage. #fatchance

_10/1/2011 8:34 AM_

**AngelBBQ** **Satan'smySupervisor** Yep, he's closing. Did you check your nail polish? LOL

_10/1/2011 8:45 AM_

**Satan'sMySupervisor**** AngelBBQ** Yeah, it's a demure electric blue today. Do you think Satan will like? ; )

_10/1/2011 8:53 AM_

**AngelBBQ** **Satan'sMySupervisor **We'll see, huh? See you there!

_10/1/2011 9:03 AM_

**Satan'sMySupervisor** ARRGGHH! I was 20 minutes late because I had a FLAT TIRE and Satan wrote me up. #worstbossever

_10/7/2011 7:45 PM_

**Satan'sMySupervisor **Satan looked like such a J. Crew ad today. I had to resist the temptation to toss him a beach ball (or a puppy) He'd probably eat the puppy.

_10/15/2011 6:43 PM_

**Satan'sMySupervisor** **AngelBBQ** Did Satan seem weird today? I mean, weirder than usual?

_10/24/2011 9:09 PM_

**AngelBBQ** **Satan'sMySupervisor **Not particularly. But then he doesn't seem to love me as much as he loves you. ; )

_10/24/2011 9:12 PM_

**Satan'sMySupervisor ****AngelBBQ **Ha Ha.It's just that I kinda mouthed off to him and he didn't write me up. It was weird.

_10/24/2011 9:13 PM_

**AngelBBQ ****Satan'sMySupervisor **Well, I do have to admit that he might or might not have seen your Craigslist ad today. Sorry.

_10/24/2011 9:20 PM_

**Satan'sMySupervisor**** AngelBBQ **WHAT? What did he say? Am I going to get written up? Oh, wait. Of COURSE I'm going to get written up. LOL.

_10/24/2011 9:23 PM_

**AngelBBQ ****Satan'sMySupervisor **I don't think so. Ryan was there at the time and Satan actually seemed more…hurt than anything else.

_10/24/2011 9:27PM_

**Satan'sMySupervisor**** AngelBBQ **NO WAY! You are NOT going to make me feel sympathy for that jerk. Just no. I'm going to go watch TV w/Charlie and rethink our friendship. ; )

_10/24/2011 9:30 PM_

**Satan'sMySupervisor** Satan actually hasn't written me up in a WHOLE WEEK and today he went home sick. (After glaring at my costume for a while)

_10/31/2011 9:45 PM_

**Satan'sMySupervisor** Good clean living, kids. It'll triumph over Satan's powers any time. I'm off to drink some blood! Happy Halloween!

_10/31/2011 9:47 PM_

_**a/n: Ok, last one for today. I didn't get this beta'ed because I'm going for gritty realism. I probably won't update until next Friday? Thanks for reading! xoxo JuJu**_


	4. Conflict of Interest

**Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns Twilight; I own a ridiculous number of Leonard Cohen cover albums.**

Emmett is no help whatsoever in the whole "talking me off the ledge because I just got a boner for a girl who hates me" thing. He mostly just laughs and thinks about how happy Carlisle and Esme are going to be.

"_Happy?"_ I hiss at him. "You think they're going to be _happy_ about this?" I shake my head.

I leave work early, using my diarrhea-excuse with Ryan, because I don't think that I can work all day, looking at Bella dressed like that, without embarrassing myself. Especially in these lame Star Trek pants.

I give the pants to Renfield to rip up. Of course, he has no interest in them. He only likes my _nice_ clothes. Esme still owes me money from when he pulled my Italian suit out of the dry cleaning bag, ate and then regurgitated it all over the living room.

I tell my family, in no uncertain terms, that I refuse to discuss the "Swan situation" and they try to respect that. But that doesn't mean that they aren't all thinking about that crap; everything from she and I carving our initials in a tree to Emmett's nasty thoughts. He watches too much HBO, frankly.

"You guys are delusional," I tell them, over a family dinner of various forest creatures. "Just because I thought she looked good dressed up like that doesn't mean she's going to be my girlfriend or something."

"Oh, Edward," Esme says. "Don't spoil this for me. I just keep thinking how nice it would be for you to have a girlfriend."

"Girlfriend?" Rosalie says. "Wanting to drink her blood disqualifies him from being good boyfriend material."

"Come on, Babe," Emmett says. "Edward's been essentially living in his parent's basement for the last 100 years. It's time he got some action."

"You guys can shut up," I snarl, as I cover-up the body of Esme's deer (it's our equivalent of helping with the dishes) and start sulking back to the house.

Carlisle catches up to me and slaps a hand on my shoulder.

"You know they mean well," he says. "We all feel like it's time you got a chance at some… companionship." The problem with Carlisle being so compassionate is that he can turn this dating nightmare into a love story for the ages. He really does just want me to be happy. He would probably even forgive me if I slipped up and drank Bella's blood as long as we got to go out on a few dates and I maybe got a grope in the backseat of the Volvo. Additionally, he thinks that I might start being better natured.

The only thing that I'm willing to admit to my family is I think Bella Swan is a pretty girl. I continue to deny that I have any interest in anything but just staring at her sometimes from across the bookstore. It is only in my most private thoughts that I contemplate the possibility that she could be something more. It's a good thing I am the mind-reader in the family or they would have a field day with this.

Despite my denials to my family, I decide I need to get some advice from someone, so I choose my closest female friend - well really, my only female friend - Angela. Ok, let's be honest, she's my only friend, period.

The next day at work, Angela and I are boxing up and moving the gardening and craft departments when I decide to ask her for some advice for the lovelorn.

"So, Angela," I say, in what I think is a casual, nonchalant voice. "Do you know if Bella has anyone she's… seeing?"

Angela turns to me and gives me the closest thing she has to a suspicious look.

"Why do you ask?" She's paused what she's doing and is examining me carefully.

"I was just curious." I mumble, as I put some books into the wrong box.

"Just curious?" she asks. She glances down at the mistake I just made.

"Yeah, just… curious. You know, wondering if she's seeing anyone."

"Yeah, you said that," she says, carefully. "I don't think so. You're not…" Angela's voice trails off but I can hear her thoughts. She sees right through my awkward casualness. Surprise.

Angela puts down the books in her hand and looks around before starting over.

"Edward, do you _like_ Bella?" she asks in a whisper, with a pained, pitying expression on her face.

"Like?" I fake astonishment. "God, no! I was just curious about whether she had a boyfriend or something. You know, just out of curiosity."

Angela looks at me skeptically. Finally, she speaks gently.

"Well, if you'd like to know more about Bella, you might think about being…uh, _nice _to her?"

"Being nice to her," I said, flatly.

"You know, not writing her up over stupid things, saying 'good morning' to her every once in a while," Angela says. She's really trying not to hurt my feelings. Angela is a saint.

"Saying 'good morning'?" I frowned at her. "You think that will help?"

"I think it's a good start," Angela says. She's talking to me as if I'm an idiot, which I guess I kind of am.

"What are we moving this stuff for, anyway?" she asks.

"I don't know," I shrug. "I just got a note from Ryan to clear these shelves."

"Huh. That seems kind of odd," Angela says.

"I'm learning to ignore odd requests from Ryan," I say. "I think the key to working for a family business is to have a well developed sense of the absurd. I just pretend I'm watching a David Lynch film. With fewer dwarves."

Angela laughs and starts helping me move the boxes to their new shelves.

As a result of this conversation, I start making the effort to actually speak to Bella about things that aren't criticisms of her work. All that really happens is that each day I awkwardly greet Bella when she arrives for her shift, awkwardly send her on her lunch break, awkwardly notify her of schedule changes, and awkwardly tell her good night when our shifts are over. If nothing else, I'm consistent.

I also start trying to pay attention to what she's doing (instead of just trying to catch her doing something wrong).

Which is how I make a very ironic discovery about Bella.

And not "ironic" like that song in the 90's by that angry, young Canadian lady. Because, honestly, most of that stuff wasn't really ironic. It was stuff that just sucked, you know, planes crashing, bugs in your wine, etc.

I am lurking around in the fiction section later in the week (it's not really stalking if you're someone's supervisor. I mean, that's my _job_) when I see Bella talking to a customer: a somewhat rotund, young man dressed all in black. She's speaking passionately about a book in her hands - which I am appalled to notice has a menacing-looking fanged creature on the front, attacking a swooning woman who really needs to cover herself up on top. Some sort of appalling, tawdry vampire romance. Using the word "vampire" loosely.

"The problem with her vampire mythology is it's inconsistent," Bella is saying. "In the first three books she says that they can't reproduce; and then, by the last one, they suddenly can?"

"Yeah, that's kind of dumb," Bella's young genius friend says. Well played, champ, well played. I glare at him.

"I think that these have a far more consistent storyline," Bella says, reaching over to a shelf at her side and pulling out another, almost identical paperback and handing it to the boy genius.

"Of course, if you want the real thing," Bella says, raising an eyebrow at him. "You need to start with Stoker and then move on to Rice. Of course, some people find Stoker's style somewhat obtuse, but it's definitely worth it."

"I just have a hard time with… all the… gayness," her Rubenesque young friend says, blushing. "I mean, all those guys are like gay for each other."

"Well," Bella says, rolling her eyes at him extravagantly. "I guess you could read your little Gothic teen stuff if you want." She waves a hand at a shelf of teen romance, dismissively.

I thought it was just a coincidence. I mean, I knew she was into reading. I mean, why else would you work in a bookstore? Unless, of course, you're Ryan.

But then I heard her talking about "Dark Shadows" and comparing it to that one on HBO with all the Southerners. I started to see a pattern forming.

Bella is… well, she's kind of _into_ vampires. Not real vampires like yours truly but, like, Dracula and Lestat and all kinds of made-up vampires. It's kind of…intriguing. It seems like something I could use to my advantage.

I mean, I like her. She likes vampires. I am a vampire. It seems like a win-win.

Unfortunately, I get a little distracted from my master plan by whatever it is that's going on in the front corner of the store. Ryan has us clear the 30 foot section of shelves and then tells Angela and I that we have to stick around late the following Monday for a meeting with Marlon, the owner.

Distracted or not, my good-night wave to Bella is almost down-right jaunty, and it makes her pause for a second and look at me curiously before walking out to her car.

Marlon had told us to meet him at the back of the store, and he's there when Angela and I finish counting the registers.

Marlon is Ryan's uncle, and he's the only thing standing between Ryan and a job mopping the floor at the local gas station. I even think Marlon knows how incompetent Ryan is, but I think he feels bad for him, being of subhuman intelligence, and all. Plus, Marlon doesn't have any kids of his own so he dotes on Ryan a little bit. But, I know for a fact that it makes Marlon feel a lot better to know that I'm working here with Ryan so I can keep him from setting the place on fire.

Marlon has owned the bookstore for close to 50 years. A couple years ago his arthritis got so bad he had to retire, and he had Ryan take over. He's using a cane when he comes in, but that means he's feeling a little bit better right now. Carlisle had told me last month that he was using a walker.

"Edward, Angela. Good to see you." Marlon says, standing in the office door, smiling.

"Hey, Marlon, do you want to sit here?" Angela offers, getting up from her seat.

"No," Marlon answers her with a wave. "We're actually going to go next door."

Finally, I can see what's going on in Marlon's head. There was a doughnut shop next-door that recently went out of business. Bella had joked (to someone else, of course) that they went out of business because Chief Swan had gone on diet. I can tell from Marlon's thoughts that the old doughnut shop has something to do with why we've been emptying the adjacent wall.

"Nice young lady from out of town," Marlon says, as he makes his way up to the front with us in tow. "She bought the place and she's turning it into a coffee shop. She approached me about knocking down the wall and having her café attached to the bookstore. I think it's a great idea. What do you kids think?"

"That sounds cool," Angela says. I just nod. Frankly, coffee and human food smells really gross to me, and I'd rather not have to deal with picking up people's cups all day, but Marlon seems really excited and it'll probably be good for business.

I unlock the front door and wait for Angela and Marlon to step through it before turning around to lock back up. I have my back to the street and I'm a little preoccupied thinking about all of those little, brown, recycled coffee sleeves and half eaten cupcakes that I'm going to have to pick up, so I don't hear the thoughts of the new owner of "Doughnut World", but when I smell her I turn around with an instinctual growl.

Greeting Marlon warmly and being introduced to Angela is a short, dark-haired, female vampire. I'm surprised to see that she has the warm, yellow eyes of a "vegetarian", and I'm doubly surprised when she smiles broadly at me, says, "You must be Edward," and then hugs me.

She pulls away from me slightly, just enough to grin up at me cheerfully and say: "I'm Alice. We're going to be just like family."

I stare down at her, stunned. I _hate_ surprises.

**a/n: I've taken some liberties with canon, as you can see. Betham beta'ed it, because she's awesome. Thank you for all your amazing reviews and recs! Xoxo JuJu**


	5. Team Building Exercises

**a/n: You know I don't own it.**

I spend the entire meeting eyeing Alice suspiciously. On the surface we participate appropriately in the meeting, but underneath it all I am doing my best to pry into her mind to find out what she's doing here - and she seems to be doing her best to keep me out.

She has the most interesting mind, what I can see of it. It's like a kaleidoscope; full of shifting images, versions of events that repeat themselves with only slight variations and disorienting, seemingly random images, like snatches of newspaper articles, music and other non-sequiturs. She's actually _suspiciously_ good at keeping me out, a skill that generally only Carlisle can do, simply because we've known each other so long. She can occupy her thoughts with inanities like reciting a phone book or seed catalog all the while carrying on a conversation with the humans at the table.

Ostensibly, she's bought Doughnut World and is going to turn it into a coffee shop. She is occupied in negotiations with Marlon to knock out part of the wall and make the two businesses adjoin. A book store and coffee shop seems like a pretty good idea if you don't consider the fact that vampires don't drink coffee. Which makes me think that she has an ulterior motive.

Not only is she skilled enough to carry on a conversation with Marlon and Angela, all the while blocking her thoughts from me, but she keeps directing little mental asides to me every few minutes about how she can't wait to meet the rest of my family. Unnerving, right?

Finally, we wrap up our meeting and I hustle Marlon and Angela out to their respective cars, while continuing to eye Alice suspiciously.

"I'll meet you at the house," Alice says, mentally. She gives me a big smile and a wave.

I nod to her, squinting in what I hope is a menacing way, as I get into the Volvo and drive home, wondering what all of this means.

I arrive home to find Emmett watching a "Law and Order" marathon with yet _another_ vampire I have never seen before.

He's tall, lanky, and blond and he, too, is suspiciously good at guarding his thoughts.

He gets up from the couch and offers his hand to me to shake.

"You must be Edward," he says "Alice's told me so much about all of you." He has a slight Southern accent, and when I look closely at him I can see that his skin is covered with thousands of tiny scars.

"Hey Eddie," Emmett says, getting up and gesturing to the new vampire. "Col. Sanders here and his wife say they've been wanting to join us for like 50 years."

"It's Jasper," the blond vampire says to me, with an indulgent smile at Emmett. "I should probably wait and let Alice tell you the whole story."

"I can't wait," I say. "Especially the part about how good you guys are at masking your thoughts."

Jasper cocks his head at me. "Is he always this welcoming?" he asks Emmett over his shoulder.

"Naw," Emmett shrugs. "Sometimes, he's actually a jerk,"

Alice arrives and makes her way into the living room. The rest of the family joins us and we make introductions. We also make Emmett turn off the TV, despite his protests that he can pay attention_ and _find out how this episode ends.

"It was the former business partner but McCoy ends up letting him take a plea," Alice says to him.

"You've seen this one?" Emmett asks curiously. "But Jasper here said you guys didn't have TV in Italy." He shudders with horror at the idea of no television.

"No, that's just how it ends," Alice says, smiling at Emmett.

"I think you should just start from the beginning, honey," Jasper prompts his wife, giving her a pat on the knee. I hate when people say that, by the way. Like starting in the middle ever makes sense?

"You have more beginning than I do," Alice says her husband, winking.

"That I do, darlin'," Jasper drawls. "I guess I'll go first, then." Jasper glances around at our curious faces and takes a deep, dramatic breath. He's definitely milking this a little bit.

"I don't suppose you've heard of the Mexican wars," he asks. "I mean, the vampire ones, not the human ones."

"I am familiar with them," Carlisle says. "A woman named Maria attempted to take control of parts of North America by creating an army of newborns."

"I was one of Maria's lieutenants," Jasper says. "It was my job to train the newborns and to keep them in line."

"The whole thing got put down by the Volturi. I'm surprised you managed to survive." Jasper nods. "It was pretty close," he tells Carlisle.

"Anyhow, I just sort of drifted around for a couple decades until this little thing found me and reformed me." Jasper gestures to his wife, who smiles at him flirtatiously.

"We stopped feeding on humans," Alice says, patting her husband's leg. "We were supposed to join you guys in the 1950s." She glances at her husband, an embarrassed look on her face.

"This little thing here didn't want to show up empty-handed, and the only appropriate gift she could think of was something from the fall collections. So we made our way over to Florence and looked at some handbags that cost more than some folks houses." Jasper drawls, looking at his wife indulgently.

"Esme, I bought you the most beautiful crocodile bag at Gucci," Alice sighs, waving her hands helplessly.

"Then sticky fingers here decided to steal the wrong person's car and I ended up looking at the wrong end of the Volturi guard for the second time in my life."

"But they saw how talented we were and decided they wanted us to stick around."

"Which was okay for a while," Jasper says. "But I'll tell you what, I can get too much of sitting around talking about art and threatening each other."

"We started trying to get out of there five years ago," Alice says, throwing up her hands in frustration. "Especially when I saw what a mess you made of things." Alice points at me.

"What are you talking about?" I ask.

"I'm talking about Bella Swan," Alice says, still pointing her tiny finger at me. "You two were going to..." Alice's voice drifts off but I can see the image in her head clearly this time. It's Bella Swan and I, looking a little younger and a lot more like we're getting…married? I can't think of any other reason why she'd be wearing a veil and I'd be looking like a love-sick moron.

"I don't get it," I choked out. I had that freaked out, gagging feeling in my chest like I'd swallowed gum, except I don't chew gum. Vampire, remember?

"The last thing you were supposed to do is to take one look at her and take off for Alaska for two years. That sent everything into a tailspin."

"Sweetie, you need to explain what goes on in that head of yours to Edward," Jasper points at Alice's head.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she says, giggling. "I should explain. I can see the future."

"That's it?" I ask. "You can see the future. Instead of drinking her blood I was supposed to ask her to prom. Sounds reasonable."

"I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not," Alice says, wrinkling her nose at me slightly.

"I keep telling him sarcasm isn't funny," Emmett says, shrugging his shoulders.

"I think it's funny," Rosalie says. "Just not when Edward does it."

"You don't think anything's funny, Rosalie," I say.

"I think your face is funny," Rose says.

"Good one," I say. "Did you stay up all night coming up with that one?"

"Edward, we don't sleep," Alice says, confused. Jasper pats her on the shoulder.

"Sweetie, he's being sarcastic," Jasper tells her, patiently.

"See?" Alice says, raising her shoulders emphatically.

"So, if you can see the future..., " I ask her. "And you saw me and Bella Swan. And it didn't happen like…that. I guess that means your ability kind of sucks, right?"

"It changes," she says. "My visions change based on people making different decisions. You were supposed to decide to stick around. You got to know her, you got used to her scent, you two fell in love. When you decided to go Alaska instead my visions of you went haywire."

"My question is, how did you get away from the Volturi? I mean, Aro collects vampires with talent. Why did he let you go?" Rosalie asks suspiciously.

"It wasn't easy," Jasper says. "We didn't even tell you about my power. I can affect people's emotions. I can make them feel things."

"So Jasper started waiting until an hour after they had fed, and then he made them feel hungry again," Alice says.

"Kind of like Chinese food?" Emmett asks.

"Exactly," Jasper says. "The Volturi are on kind of a limited feeding schedule. I mean, there's only so many people who decide to go there on vacation. Especially after they opened EuroDisney."

"So, what did you…" I start to ask Alice.

"Do?" Alice finishes my sentence.

"Yeah, how did you convince them…"

"To let us go?" Alice finishes my sentence. Again.

"Yeah," I say, irritated.

"I finished all of their sentences," Alice says. "Every single one. For 3 years straight."

"That's so…annoying," I say. "That's unbelievably annoying. I can't believe they didn't just kill you."

"Yeah, me neither. I would have killed me," Alice says, giggling. "Anyway, they let us go. Aro reserved the right to call us for help, but right now I think you need us more."

"This is exactly what I don't need," I say. "I don't need some glorified fortune cookie telling me what to do. I don't even _like_ Bella Swan." I stand up, gesturing around the living room frantically. "For that matter, we don't even know if you're telling the truth about your abilities or about your relationship with the Volturi."

"Is he always this paranoid?" Jasper asks my family.

"He was actually worse during the 1950s," Carlisle responds. "McCarthyism was not good to Edward."

"But it was a great decade for television," Emmett enthuses. "Have you watched much 'Ed Sullivan'?" Jasper shakes his head and Emmett grabs his arm and pulls him over to the couch. "You have so much to get caught up on."

I glare at Alice and then stalk out of the room. Not taking my subtle hint, she follows me.

"I don't get it," she says. "Are you saying you don't like her?" Alice sounds genuinely confused.

"That's exactly what I'm saying," I say, even though that's not exactly true. What I don't like is having some undead member of the Lollipop Guild telling me that I screwed up my chances by making the safe choice three years ago, and that I had to listen to her misguided and potentially faulty advice now. Call me a skeptic, but I'm not going to embarrass myself following the advice of a woman I don't even know.

Plus, she and her husband just piss me off with their…_in-love-ness_. The last thing I need is _another_ pair of mated vampires bugging the crap out of me with their kissy-faces and their raging hormones.

"Listen, Nostradamus," I say, turning back to where she's standing, hands on her hips. "Nothing, and I mean, _nothing_, is going to happen with Bella Swan and I except the occasional performance review and maybe appropriate workplace conversations. The hottest thing that's going to happen between us is a cup of hot chocolate at the employee Christmas party. Seriously."

I turn away from Alice and make my way calmly to the back door, mentally patting myself on the back for a job well done, putting this little immortal interloper in her place.

"Ok, Edward," she says sweetly. "Then I guess you won't mind about the date she's going to have Friday night?"

I stop, my back still to her. Wincing, I ground out, "No. That will be fine," between clenched teeth.

"Great," Alice says, her perky voice filling me with growly hatred.

"Great," I respond, grabbing onto the handle to the back door and throwing the door open. A little bit too hard, unfortunately. Esme's going to be pissed.

I hate my life. I hate Alice. I also hate making Esme angry and I hate Bella Swan and I hate anyone who asks her out on a date.

Not that I care if she goes on a date. Much.

**a/n: Betham betas it so you don't have to. I apologize for the delay as well as being reply fail. I'll do better! I promise! Thanks for all the reads and RTs and reviews and any other "R" things you may be doing, unbeknownst to me. xoxo JuJu**


	6. Mandatory Overtime

**a/n: Ownership hasn't changed hands since last we spoke. JSYK.**

From: bloodymary (at) uw (dot) edu  
>Subject: finally!<br>Date: November 10, 2011  
>To: vamplovrswan (at) pc (dot) ctc (dot) edu<p>

What's up Bellisima?

I was so excited to finally hear from you! It's been twice as boring as it was before at UW, if you can believe that! I mean, I knew you had to go back to Forks to take care of your dad, but what a bummer!

Speaking of things that are awesome (like you!) I saw that Swedish vampire movie you told me about. Creepy! OMG! It seriously makes me rethink going to Europe this summer, especially since you won't be able to make it now. I'm afraid I'll run into some castrated child vampire. LOL!

Anywho, I think as long as you're out there in Dullsville, I hope you don't mind but I took the liberty of giving my brother your phone number. Remember Spencer? He's in Port Angeles and I _know_ he'd want to see you again! You can't use the excuse that he lives too far away this time, LOL!

I'm ultra jealous about your bookstore job (less jealous about your douche-tastic supervisor)! Do you get a major discount? Not like you didn't already spend all your time reading, I bet that's all there is to do there!

Well, hit me back when you get a chance and don't go finding yourself a new reading buddy!

Later,

Mary

From: vamplovrswan (at) pc (dot) ctc (dot) edu  
>Subject: re: finally!<br>Date: November 12, 2011  
>To: bloodymary (at) uw (dot) edu<p>

Mary,

Hey, scaredy cat, great to hear back from you.

I hope you weren't serious about rethinking your trip to Europe. I would give up a _kidney_ to get to travel! I will seriously drive to Seattle and waste you if you don't go!

Things at work are a little better. Oddly, my supervisor has been almost nice for a few days; I think he got talked to about being a dick to me. Also, they are putting in a coffee shop attached to the store so I can get my caffeine fix at work now without drinking crappy doughnut shop coffee. I think it was like Folger's or something. (vomits)

I talked to Spencer; we're going to go see a movie on Friday. I don't know if I'm mad at you for giving him my # but I just don't see it going anywhere, you know? I'm not going to be in Forks forever, right?

Anyhow, take care and check out that dystopian future vampirey thing I sent you. I know it's long but it's good, I swear!

xoxo

Bella

**Satan'sMySupervisor** Wherefore art thou, Satan? I'm not going to have anything good to tweet if you keep being civil to me. #itsatrap  
>119/2011, 9:53 A.M.

**Satan'sMySupervisor** Satan! Thank goodness all has returned to normal and you were back to glaring at me and lurking around the corner every time I spoke to a customer.  
>1112/2011, 10:15 P.M.

**Satan'sMySupervisor **I was so worried about you! You actually acted like a human being for almost a week and I was worried that you would sprain something.  
>1112/2011, 10:16 P.M.

**Satan'sMySupervisor **Also, that sweater makes you look like Mr. Rogers.  
>1112/2011, 10:17 P.M.

**Satan'sMySupervisor **Really? You're going to monitor all my phone calls now? You are aware that sometimes I have to talk to customers by phone, right? #freak  
>1114/2011, 7:09 P.M.

**Satan'sMySupervisor **AARRGGHHHH!  
>1116/2011, 9:34 P.M.

**AngelBBQ**** Satan'sMySupervisor **What happened? You looked PISSED but I didn't want to ask in front of You Know Who.  
>1116/2011, 9:50 P.M.

**Satan'sMySupervisor**** AngelBBQ** Voldemort? LOL. Satan kept me at work 3 HRS LATER than scheduled for NO REASON! #bastard  
>1116/2011, 9:55 P.M.

**AngelBBQ**** Satan'sMySupervisor **That's so weird. We weren't even busy. #huh  
>1116/2011, 9:57 P.M.

**Satan'sMySupervisor**** AngelBBQ** IKR! Plus I had a date. Like, the first one in AGES. #dicklord  
>1116/2011, 10:04 P.M.

**AngelBBQ**** Satan'sMySupervisor **Oh, I'm not surprised then, LOL.  
>1116/2011, 10:10 P.M.

**Satan'sMySupervisor**** AngelBBQ** What? He can't get a date so no one can have one? He just needs someplace with a bigger gay community. And higher tolerance for dicks. #samething  
>1116/2011, 10:13 P.M.

**AngelBBQ**** Satan'sMySupervisor **I think it might have more to do with YOU having a date, TBH.  
>1116/2011, 10:16 P.M.

**Satan'sMySupervisor**** AngelBBQ** GROSS. And delusional. Getting engaged has made you soft in the head. Satan hates me like he loves hair gel and khakis.  
>1116/2011, 10:20 P.M.

**AngelBBQ**** Satan'sMySupervisor **I don't want to gross you out, LOL. I guess you'll have to wait and see for yourself. See ya tomorrow!  
>1116/2011, 10:24 P.M.

**Satan'sMySupervisor**** AngelBBQ** Yeah, I'll be the one with the bad attitude and NO DATES IN A YEAR.

11/16/2011, 10:30 P.M.

**a/n: Betham tries to help me but there's only so much one girl can do. There is another short chapter coming right after this one. I apologize for any inconvenience; I just wanted to keep the POVs separated.**

**Thank you for all the sweet reviews and stuff. Also, Debb over at Bookish Temptations wrote me the sweetest review. If you want to check it out it's at ****http : / / bit . ly /**** yhmFrD (remove my spaces). Thanks! xoxo JuJu**


	7. Workplace Privacy

**a/n: Ownership status remains unchanged. **

Pure, unalloyed childishness. In a fit of appalling, scandalous, immature jealousy, I forced Bella to stay at work that Friday night on the thinnest of excuses because, I knew she had a date with some shaggy, emo, hipster scumbag. Ridiculous.

How did I know the exact time and day to stall Bella so much as to make her miss her date? Well, after stalking every conversation she had for days, I realized that I had her so frightened of having a personal conversation at work that she would never do so in my presence.

So, I did what any combination would-be paramour and supervisor would do in my position. I stole her cell phone out of her locker and checked both her text messages and voice mail.

Appalling, I know. Actually, I wouldn't have done it if I had known that _Alice_, that little menace, would be able to see what I'd done and harass me about it.

Which still didn't stop me from sabotaging her date. Nor did my new sister's occult powers of observation stop me from driving to the home of one Spencer Randall, erstwhile dater of my employee/obsession.

I didn't really have a good plan, but I figured I could wing it. Or stalk him until I had an opportunity to force him move to Topeka, or break a collarbone, or something.

I was sitting in the Volvo watching Scumbag's apartment when there was a tap on my window. Alice.

"What?" I asked, huffing. I was still getting accustomed to her gift. There was no way I could claim to have no interest in Bella Swan now. Alice made a turning motion with her hand and pointed to my window.

"My windows are electric, Alice," I said. "Besides, I can hear you fine."

Alice crossed her arms and frowned at me minutely. Then she gestured over to the apartment I was watching.

"What are you going to do, break his leg?" she asked.

"No," I said, sheepishly. It _had_ occurred to me. Only briefly.

"This is going to backfire," she said. She showed me the vision in her head: an injured Scumbag-Spencer being tended to by Bella.

I grumbled. "I don't care," I insisted. "I'm just making sure he's safe for her. I don't want to run the risk of her bleeding in front of me."

"What do you think he's going to do? Ask her to be blood brothers with him at her place of work? Test her blood sugar?" Alice rolls her eyes at me. In her annoying little head I can see that she _knows_ I have a crush on Bella. But I'm not going down without a fight.

"I don't sleep, Alice," I say, feigning nonchalance. "Stalking my employee's potential dates is a hobby of mine. That, and collecting stamps."

"Get out of here," Alice warned me. "You're going to mess everything up."

I grumbled, but took her advice and drove back home. I mean, she had probably blown my cover anyway.

Now it's my day off, which doesn't really mean much when you haven't slept since the Great War, but that fact doesn't keep me from complaining when Emmett comes and drags me out of my perpetual bachelor lair. You know what I'm talking about, right? No bed, leather couch, a bazillion CDs.

"Alice wants our help down at the store," Emmett says, throwing a pair of shoes at me.

"It's my day off," I respond. "I'm going to look like a loser if I show up on my day off."

Emmett looks at me, smirking. "Shut up, " I say. "Just shut up."

I drive down to the store, secretly pleased that I will get to see Bella.

Alice is directing traffic through the gaping hole her workers have cut between Doughnut World and the bookstore. She waves me over.

"Hey, can you wait over here for a bit? I have a shipment coming in, and Emmett is going to take me over to Newton's for some stuff." She waves to a table she has set up in the clear section in the front. For a second I rethink this hatred I have of Alice. Bella and Angela are sitting at the table unwrapping boxes of dishes.

I take a seat and greet them. Bella greets me quietly, her head immediately dipping back down. I wonder if she is still mad at me about Friday night. Angela smiles at me warmly and shoots Bella a glance.

"Coming in on your day off?" Angela teases gently. "You're such a good employee." No one here knows that Alice and Jasper are shacking up with us. I think it would be seen as a little strange. Like we have a Western Washington yuppie cult or something. Composed entirely of affluent, pale people.

"I told Alice I would help out, " I say, wishing I could think of a way to draw Bella out. Unfortunately, instead of getting her involved in the conversation, the chit-chat between Angela and I kind of dies out awkwardly.

"Oh, Bella," Angela suddenly says, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "I watched that movie you lent me. It was…kind of creepy." I can see in Angela's thoughts that Bella loaned her "Bram Stoker's Dracula." I've seen it, of course. Emmett is quite the Winona Ryder fan.

"That's one of my favorite movies," Bella says quietly, refusing to look at me, but more animated. "I love Gary Oldman's version of Dracula."

"I don't really get it," Angela says. "I mean, with Keanu Reeves as a husband she would fall in love with a guy who turns into an…ape thing?" Angela's face crinkles up with disgust.

"Well, I think that they are destined for each other," Bella says, passionate. I am transfixed. "He thinks she is his wife reincarnated. Plus, that's part of the appeal of vampires; the animalistic part, the way they are fiercer, more savage than humans. I mean, he wouldn't have been as appealing if he wore polo shirts and lived with his mom. No offense, Edward." Bella directed this last to me with a smirk.

I was frankly afraid to respond, I was so torn between being aroused that she said vampires were sexy and feeling offended that she thought I would wear polo shirts.

"So, you're saying vampires have to look gross to be real vampires? They couldn't look like Edward?" Angela asks, with a twinkle in her eye.

Bella snorts. "Of course not. Vampires wouldn't look like Banana Republic models." She waved a hand in my direction. I was still speechless. I mean, it was good if she thought I looked like a model, right?

"Vampires should look…edgy," Bella says with a smile and, as if it was _planned_ this way, Bella's attention is caught by someone coming in the front door and making his way over to where we are sitting.

He's wearing jeans tighter than I usually think is fashionable or tasteful, a black shirt with some of its buttons dangerously underutilized and a black leather jacket. With his pallor and his longish hair pulled back, Alice's mate looks shockingly _vampirey._

"Vampires should look like _that_," Bella breathes, transfixed.

I'm going to kill him.

**a/n: Thanks for indulging me in keeping all my little word piles separated nicely. In case you were wondering I don't like having my food touch on my plate either. Until next week! JuJu**


	8. Fraternization Policy

**Disclaimer: All your Twilight are belong to Stephanie Meyer.**

So Jasper is smoldering his way over to us, Bella is staring at him like he's something to eat, and Angela's eyes are darting quickly between Bella and I, with amusement.

I decide to jump up from where I'm sitting and head Jasper off at the pass, greeting him warmly and ushering him over to the table with my best faux-friendly smile.

"Have you two met Alice's _husband_, Jasper?" I say effusively. "Jasper, these are my coworkers, Angela and Bella." I grip Jasper's arm, hard. He looks at me curiously and then at the two women at the table.

"Very nice to meet you, Bella, Angela," Jasper says with a dip of his head. He glances back at me with the same saccharine smile. "I heard we were expecting some shipments?"

"Let me show you the loading dock," I say to him, trying hard to communicate to him with my eyes that if he talks to Bella I'll punch him.

I pull a confused Jasper back to the loading dock, where Emmett is watching "Beverly Hillbillies" on his iPhone. Jasper turns to me with a frown. Then he turns back to Emmett. Jasper is clearly having some trouble adjusting to life with my family.

"Aren't you supposed to be with Alice?" he asks Emmett. Emmett doesn't look up, but he responds to Jasper. "She said I wasn't helping and she brought me back."

Emmett's favorite way to get out of helping is being incompetent. I'm not sure how much of it's intentional. I laugh, which draws Jasper's attention back to me.

"There any reason you were trying to pull my arm off back there?" Jasper asks, rubbing his shoulder.

"No, no reason," I say nonchalantly. "Sometimes I just don't know my own strength."

"You have to understand," Emmett pipes up, still staring at his phone. "Edward's right hand is pretty strong." He lifts his face from his phone long enough to snicker at me.

"Piss off, Emmett," I respond, flipping him off. "At least I don't have to let my wife pick out my cars for me." This really happened. Rosalie wouldn't let Emmett get one of those big pearl-colored Escalades. She made him get a Kia. It was the high point of 2007 for me, frankly

"If you had a wife - which is looking like a _dim_ possibility - you probably would, Eddie. An eternity is a _long_ time to be married. It's a good idea to pick your battles."

"Amen, brother," Jasper says, offering his fist for Emmett to bump.

"You two make me sick," I say. "I would rather be a champion at jerking off then be as whipped as the two of you are."

"That's so not true," Emmett says. "If you had a chance to have a mate, you'd be the most whupped mother-fucker of all of us."

"You keep telling yourself that, Emmett. You have to assume I'd be a pussy like you in order to validate your dickless status." I feel like I have to back up the bravado of my words with some swaggering, so I stalk out of the room, which has the added benefit of giving me the last word in the argument.

Additionally, I am able to rejoin Bella and Angela in the front of the gutted doughnut shop. I sit back down and look at Bella expectantly.

"So," I say with a smile. "You were giving us your thoughts on vampires?"

Bella gives me a slight frown and sets down the mug she has just unwrapped. She gets up from the table and smoothes out her sweater. Which reminds me of how I think she's hot and how she thinks I am a tool.

"I'm going to go see if Jessica needs any help in the store. It's just her and Ryan in there." Bella walks into the bookstore through the hole in the wall. I follow her with my eyes and then sigh.

"Well, you're making a lot of progress there, I see." Angela smiles at me.

"Nope," I say. "I have been wholly unsuccessful. Did you tell her I had leprosy?"

Angela laughs. "No, but can I give you a piece of advice?" she asks cautiously.

"Sure thing," I say. "I am clearly out of my depth."

"Well," Angela is speaking tentatively and she's afraid to hurt my feelings. "I think Bella appreciates people who are genuine. You know, people who don't pretend to be something they're not. I get the impression her mom's a little flaky and that bugs her about people."

"What does she think I'm pretending to be?" I ask. Frankly, I'm a little alarmed. I've never had any indication that anyone here suspects I'm not human; but then, I can't read Bella's mind.

"It's just that you've been a little… inconsistent," Angela says, wincing. "You know, you're a jerk, then you're nice, then you're a jerk." Angela shrugs and unwraps another mug.

I nod slowly. "I can see that." I get up and move another box of dishes closer to her. "So, I just need to focus on being one or the other?" I joke.

Angela nods. "Seriously, I'm not even sure that she minds you being a jerk, as long as you're consistently being a jerk."

"Oh, I think Edward could handle that part." Alice says, breezing in through the hole in the wall.

"Thanks Alice," I say. She pulls me out of my chair, smiling sweetly at Angela. "Thanks for doing those. I brought you and Bella some pastries from the bakery."

Alice pulls me to the back room where Emmett is trying to explain the characters on "Beverly Hillbillies" to Jasper.

"So, Jethro and Ellie May aren't siblings?" Jasper is asking.

"No, but Jethro has a twin sister, Jethrine, but she's played by the same actor." Emmett says. "And Jed and Grannie aren't married. That's his mother-in-law."

"Huh, " Jasper says, confused. "But the secretary is in love with Jethro?"

"Yeah, Jane has a crush on Jethro but she's not really his type, you know what I mean?"

"Kind of like how Edward isn't Bella's 'type'?" Jasper says, with a glance at me.

"Yeah, you didn't happen to notice Bella drooling on your husband, did you?" I ask Alice. I mean, what is the use in being able to see the future if you can't head off disasters like that?

"The outfit is a little over the top, J.," Emmett says, appraising Jasper's sleazy vampire ensemble. "Those jeans make me kind of uncomfortable. Just the fact that I know which way you…dress gives me the heebie-jeebies."

"Talk to my wife," Jasper says. He does, however, untuck his shirt so that we don't have to stare at his…stuff any more.

"You told him to do that?" I wave at Jasper's outfit. "Like I'm not already unsuccessful enough that I need competition?"

"So you admit that you like her?" Alice asks, arching an eyebrow at me.

"Shhh!" I hiss. "They can probably hear us!"

"What's wrong with a girl knowing that you like her?" Jasper asks. Oh, man. This guy has been out of touch with reality for a while.

"The agony and embarrassment of rejection," I say. "Like the way you felt when the South lost the Civil War."

"Or when all those guys from Lynyrd Skynyrd died," Emmett says.

"Who?" Jasper says.

"I keep forgetting you were locked up with the Bore-turi for so long," Emmett says. "You totally missed Southern Rock, you poor thing."

"Can we get back on subject here for a minute?" I hiss. "Why would you have your husband dress like…some kind of _trampire _if you knew the girl I might or might not like would be attracted to him? That's just cruel."

"I'm trying to help you, Edward," Alice says, jumping down off the loading dock and starting to hand boxes to Emmett and Jasper from the van she rented. "You need a plan of action, or this whole thing is going to get away from you."

"What do you suggest? That I dress like that?" I point to Jasper. "There's a dress code here, you know. Ryan usually expects us to wear shirts."

"You couldn't pull this look off, Ed-Nerd," Jasper says. Emmett slaps him on the back, laughing.

"You told him?" I ask Emmett who shrugs.

"No, I don't think it'll come to that," Alice says. "But you need to focus on how you're going to handle this whole situation before it gets handled for you."

"I don't even know what that means, Alice." I try to see into her head but it's a mélange of stuff, and I can't pick out anything that makes sense in the context of Bella and my non-existent relationship.

"It just means that there are some good outcomes and some less good ones here, and I'm suggesting that you find some way to…develop your relationship with her before it gets taken out of all of our hands." Alice is unloading things, but I can see that she's getting flustered. She's more upset about this than she's letting on and I see a flash, just a glimpse of something. It's a street in what looks like Paris, and I'm looking at the back of a woman's head. She has long dark hair and it could be Bella, but I can't tell for sure. Then the picture disappears and it's replaced by…pastries?

Alice holds a bag out to me. "Go and give these to Bella and Angela," she says. "And be nice."

I nod and take the bag. It smells like…vomit and cinnamon. People food. Eew.

Angela and Bella aren't sitting in the construction disaster anymore so I venture out into the store to find them.

Angela is talking to Ryan in the kid's section, and Bella?

Bella is up by the front counter talking to fucking Scumbag-Spencer.

I stop where I am and just glare at him. His overly-long, emo, dyed black hair and his "vintage" Sex Pistols t-shirt make me want to slap him around. But I remember Alice's warning about making him a victim and approach them with forced casualness.

"Bella, Alice sent me to give you these," I hold out the bag of cinnamon-vomit pastries to her. Bella quirks an eyebrow at me. I'm guessing she's either confused by my friendliness or wondering whether she's going to get written up. I contemplate the latter but then decide it's not compatible with my "develop my relationship" goals. Duh.

"I'm Edward." I extend my hand to S.S., forcing Bella to introduce us.

"Spencer, this is my supervisor. Edward, this is a friend of mine, Spencer."

"Nice to meet you, Spencer," I shake his hand, applying just a touch too much force. He winces. I give him a big toothy smile. Vampire teeth fucking rule.

"You a big Pistols fan?" I ask, gesturing towards his shirt.

"What…oh, yeah," Spencer says, his eyes fixed on me. He's kind of freaking out.

"What's your favorite single?" I ask him, feeling vindicated when I realize that he only knows two of their songs.

"Uh, 'Anarchy in the UK'?" he says, hesitantly. I nod.

"Original choice, " I say, nodding. Bella's eyes flicker between the two of us. I am soaring inside. I have confirmed for myself that this guy is a total poseur and now I just need to prove it to her. I am opening my mouth to do so when Alice's grating little voice calls me from across the store.

"Edward, make sure you give Angela her pastry!" she says. I turn to her and glare and she gives me a pointed look. I turn back to the Scumbag reluctantly.

"It was nice to meet you, Spencer," I give him a wave and turn to Bella.

"Are you going to share?" I ask her, nodding to the pastries. She holds my gaze for a minute, suspiciously, and then nods. She pulls a pastry out of the bag and hands it back to me.

"Thank you, Edward," she says.

"My pleasure, Bella," I give her a little bow which I hope comes off more dashing than fruity and go to give Angela her smelly "food".

Walking back into the future coffee shop, I look at Alice inquisitively.

"Well?" I ask. "Was that better?"

Alice nods. "You're on the right track. You just want to make sure he embarrasses _himself_. If you do it for him she'll see you as a bully."

It seems like good advice but I am impatient. I have an idea.

"What if I help him?" I ask Alice. She pauses for a minute and her gaze goes off into the distance. Then she nods.

"That'll work. Now you just have to talk Rosalie into it. I'll take care of Bella and Angela." She turns to walk back to the loading dock and then turns back to me.

"So, I know I said you don't have to change the way you dress, but you might want to rethink the khakis. They're pretty…non-vampirey."

"Jeans?" I ask. She nods.

"At a minimum. No one fantasizes about being ravaged by Mr. Rogers."

I want to be offended by the "Mr. Rogers" thing, but I have to admit I do own the odd cardigan or two. I'm just relieved that I don't have to adopt the whole trashy vampire look. It's never been my favorite.

**a/n: Betham arranges things so no one will ever know about my shoddy grammar. My apologies again for the delay and never responding to reviews and all of my other innumerable sins. I'm pretty good about returning shopping carts to their little corrals so I hope that makes up for it. Thank you so much for the reviews and recs and all that other stuff! You could be out there reading actual well-plotted and developed stuff and yet you indulge me in my nonsense so, thanks and stuff. xoxo JuJu**


	9. Employee Morale

_**a/n: I no more own Twilight than I own any other published work. I did, however, write a fascinating senior thesis on women in the Chinese Communist Party. **_

I love my sister. Not in a creepy, "Flowers in the Attic" way, but in the "Sure, I'll help you fuck with that human" way. She is so excited about setting up the Scumbag so that Bella can see him for the poseur he is, she even offers to do it on the night of her man-hater group. (Please don't tell her I called it that.)

Rosalie and I start putting things in motion for the Great Wannabe Sting of 2011, while Alice works on making sure Bella will be in position to see his fall from grace.

I won't bore you with the logistics except to say that, at some point, I figured out that Bella knew Rosalie from high school, so her involvement had to be _sub rosa_; and that the boredom inherent in being around a hundred years had really lowered my expectations in terms of entertaining activities. Which is just a snotty way of saying that it was pretty fun to plot Scumbag's downfall.

So, because I had the dubious pleasure of skulking around inside Scumbag's brain while all this was happening (because I'm immature like that) I will, for your enjoyment, show you what happened that day from Spencer's point of view.

Spencer left his spacious apartment in Port Angeles that Saturday morning at 10 o'clock, on his way to go help a friend move. But before he could get to his car, his attention was drawn to a shapely blonde bent over the engine of a 1968 Impala.

"Can I give you a hand?" The scout-like Spencer asked, as he took in the near-perfect shape of a woman's posterior.

She pulled herself upright, in the process removing from the engine cavity one of the most beautiful faces Spencer had ever seen.

"I think I may be out of antifreeze," the blonde said huskily. "You wouldn't happen to have any, would you?" She fluttered her thick eyelashes and pouted with her perfect red lips.

"I… I think I might," our hero stuttered. "Let me go look." He spun around, stumbling slightly. He briefly considered running to the nearest automotive supply store if he didn't have any in the carport.

"Oh, thank you so much," the blonde said. "I would really appreciate it."

The scumbag hightailed it into his carport and quickly found half a bottle of anti-freeze, which he delivered to the blonde chivalrously. Additionally, he offered her a hose with which to dilute it with water and filled her coolant tank for her, all the while maintaining a charming conversation with her in which he educated her in the ways of proper automobile maintenance. The blonde really seemed to appreciate it.

"Well, I think you should be all right now," Spencer said. "If you'd like, I can follow you home to make sure it's okay."

"No, I think it should be okay," the blonde said, fluttering her lashes again. "Say, what kind of music do you like?"

"I like all kinds," he said, being the open-minded young man he is.

"Well, one of my favorite bands is playing in town tonight, and I was wondering if you'd like to go dancing with me?" There was just the perfect hint of coyness in the blonde's invitation. "Do you like country music?"

Spencer nodded vigorously. "I love it," he said. The blonde looked thrilled.

"Great," she said, taking a piece of paper out of her purse and writing down an address. "Meet me here at 7," she said, taking in his attire. "Make sure you bring your cowboy hat, Cowboy." She gave him a wink and jumped into the Impala.

Spencer watched her drive off, filled with anticipation for the night's events. Back behind the dumpster, I was somewhat nauseated from being inside the head of someone who found my sister so attractive. But, it was all for the greater good so I figured I could tough it out.

Now, like the colossal poseur he is, Spencer shows up promptly at 7 PM at Rowdy's Country Bar sporting a cowboy hat, boots, and jeans almost as tight as the ones Jasper had been wearing. I shudder from my position in the parking lot in my Volvo.

Alice had done her job, telling Bella that she wanted her help scoping out a local coffee shop for inspiration. "Spying on the competition," Alice had called it.

Alice may not understand sarcasm and her husband may be a little too vampirey for my purposes, but her timing is excellent. I love people who are punctual.

Our cowboy is approaching the bar as Alice and Bella make their way in his direction, and like a perfectly choreographed ballet of rival sabotage Bella sees her erstwhile suitor dressed, not in converse and black, but like an extra from "Brokeback Mountain."

"Spencer?" Bella says, scorn mixing with confusion on her face.

"Bella…I…" Spencer suddenly takes in his own attire and blushes. 100 feet away in the Volvo, I laugh like a loon.

"I have a…" Spencer suddenly wonders whether he shouldn't tell Bella that he has a date. They weren't dating exclusively. In fact, they had never even been on their first date, thanks to yours truly. If I were capable of tears, at this point they would have been streaming down my face. I haven't laughed this hard since Emmett thought Women's Studies classes would prepare him for a career as a gynecologist.

Bella just shakes her head with a look of the deepest disgust on her face and waves her hand dismissively at him. "I just don't get it," she mumbles, and then turns to Alice. "Where's the place we're checking out?" She passes by an embarrassed Spencer with Alice in tow.

Spencer shakes his cowboy-hatted head and calls her name, but she ignores him, so he heads into Rowdy's fine establishment, still eager for his date with my sister.

Unfortunately for him, Rosalie is nowhere to be seen, as she's watching from the Volvo with me while I give her a running commentary of his thoughts. Waiting for Spencer in the bar, however, is my brother.

"You lookin' for Rosie?" Emmett grunts at him, doing his best "Deliverance" impression.

"Yeah," Spencer says cautiously. 'Do you know where she is?"

Emmett scowls at him. "She's at home where she belongs, takin' care of our six kids and my prize hog!" Emmett takes several menacing, staggering steps towards the terrified boy. He is laying it on a bit thick, but Spencer is too distracted by Emmett's size and filthy overalls to discern his lack of acting talent, and he stumbles backwards out of the bar, all the while praying to God to make this whole thing just a bad dream.

Truthfully, we had several additional steps planned, but everything had gone so smoothly so far that we decide to nix the "stealing his iPhone at vampire speed", and the part where we had sheet-wearing goblins chasing him home. It just seems like overkill at this point.

Rosalie and I laugh hysterically in the Volvo for the next few minutes, watching Spencer drop his keys several times and then drive off haphazardly. The laughter has just about died down when Emmett joins us. One look at his face and we start laughing all over again.

We let Emmett tell us how he had missed his calling as a great actor for a few minutes. He has himself winning Oscars and playing Hamlet before we burst his bubble and tell him that we actually thought Mr. Ed was a better actor than him.

We are debating this very point when my phone rings. Alice.

"What's up, Nostradamus?" I ask.

"Funny, Deadward," she snorts. "And here I was calling to do you a favor. It's okay, I'll just let Bella cry on my shoulder. Or maybe one of the rednecks buying her drinks will do."

"Wait, what?" I ask. "Where are you guys?"

"We're in Rowdy's," she answers. "We decided to get a drink, and I thought you might want an opportunity to catch Bella on the rebound. Well, the mini-rebound. I don't think she's actually upset about Spencer…" The noise from the bar surged and Alice yells something about another round.

"Alice! Alice, wait!" I yell into the phone. Then I hang up and look at Emmett and Rosalie.

"I'm going into that Western bar over there and try to talk to a girl." I must look nervous because Rosalie gives me an uncharacteristically kind smile and pats me on the arm.

"You'll do great, Edward," she says, shooting a glance at Emmett when he snorts. "Just pretend you're someone who has skills with women and that she doesn't hate you."

"Booze may help, too!" Emmett says. Sadly, he means this to be encouraging.

I check my hair in the rearview mirror and, seeing that it's gotten a little wild from my hysterical laughter, pull a bottle of extra-hold hair gel out of the glove box.

Rose thinks, for the three-hundredth time, that I look like a dweeb with my hair gelled down.

"Yeah, but I look like a feather duster without it," I say, still looking in the tiny mirror as I press my hair down with both hands.

Emmett confirms my feather duster impression and then asks Rose if she thinks he should try out for the local theatre company.

"Maybe if they're doing 'Deliverance,'" I interject, flashing a smile at the two of them and getting out of my car. "Now, you two need to either wait for me or go back in Alice's car. There's no way I'm running back to Forks in these shoes." I gesture at my brand new loafers.

"I didn't think they still made those," Emmett said, staring at my exquisitely polished shoes. "Are those python?"

"Alligator," I say. "Overdone?" Emmett and Rosalie look at one another and laugh. I give up and wave at them as I walk over to the bar. It occurs to me, as I listen to the live country music coming out of the fine establishment I am approaching, that I am going to look even more out of place than Alice and Bella. I inspect my clothes again, but there's really nothing to be done. I mean, you can't really do much to make wool slacks and a sweater vest look _rustic_, can you?

I push open the doors and zero in on the girls. They are sitting at a table halfway back towards the stage and over to the side. Bella doesn't look even the slightest bit broken-hearted - which is good and bad, right? I mean, if she was torn up about the Spencer thing I could catch her on the rebound. On the other hand, if she were really upset about it I'd have to feel all insecure about it, right?

Anyhow, Bella and Alice are talking and smiling while ignoring an annoying little cloud of admirers hovering around them. Bella has in front of her what appears to be half of a beer, and Alice pretends to drink hers. Really, she's pouring amounts of it out at vampire speed into a plastic plant that sits a few feet away from her.

Alice sees me first. "Edward," she says, pretending to be surprised to see me.

"Hey Alice, Bella," I give Bella a restrained smile. "I saw your car out in the parking lot and decided to come find you." I take an unoffered seat at their table and shoot a glare to a mustachioed fellow who has swarmed a little too close.

"I'm so glad to see you," Alice says, her eyes flickering to Bella. Bella catches the social cue and nods in agreement.

"Let me buy you two a round," I say, raising my hand for a bartender.

"No, Edward, you shouldn't," Bella says to me, her eyes wide with anxiety.

"Please," I say, smiling at her. "I want to." I just signal the frightening woman who starts to walk over to bring us another round. I don't want to give Bella the chance to refuse.

"So, you two come here often?" I ask, grinning. I gesture around the place, with its wagon wheels and rope décor. Alice and Bella look at each other, a little embarrassed.

"No, we were checking out a coffee shop and we decided to duck in for a drink," Alice says. I can see in her head that it was her suggestion to drink beer in the Redneck Saloon.

"Well, the place where Alice wanted to do her 'market research' was a Starbucks and therefore just like every other Starbucks out there," Bella says, rolling her eyes at Alice.

"What can I say? I've been overseas for a while." Alice shrugs her shoulders and winks at me.

"Well, maybe the answer is making it more like a European café, then," I suggest.

Bella's face lights up in a way that Bella's face has never responded to any other word that have ever come out of my poorly-socialized mouth. I stare at her in wonder.

"Have you been to Europe?" Bella asks. I choose my words carefully. I can't go talking myself into a timeline corner. For example, if I'm only supposed to be twenty-one, I can't very well tell her that I spent ten years in St. Petersburg, right? Especially if I mention that it was Leningrad at the time.

"Yeah, my parents have taken me there in the summer a few times," I say. Bella's face goes dreamy.

"I would love to go to Europe," she says. "What was your favorite place?"

Oddly, miraculously, euphorically, I am able to maintain an appropriate conversation with Bella for a whole half an hour without offending her or making myself look like a jackass. I am able to do this because my family and I have had to move like crazy in order to escape detection, and that means I have been all over the place; and, a little known fact about Bella Swan? She is dying to travel.

I giggle to myself that I just might be able to accommodate her, especially with the dying part.

**a/n: Betham fixes everything and makes it better. Also, speaking of cool things, the lovely and talented Vicanlp made me the coolest banner for this. bit (dot) ly / HThgj4 (remove my dots and spaces and prepare to be wowed) **

**I actually got to like 30% of my reviews this time, please forgive my poor time management and know that I treasure each one and feel unspeakable guilt every time I don't respond. **

**Thank you so much for reading! xoxo JuJu**


	10. Company Car

**a/n: Stephenie Meyer owns "Twilight" and it's associated characters/plots, etc. I am so far from being Stephenie Meyer that I had to Google how to spell her name.**

Bella Swan and I enjoy thirty whole minutes where I don't say something rude and she doesn't roll her lovely brown eyes at me. We discuss my favorite places to visit, and I start trying to calculate how awkward it would be to get her a ticket to go somewhere overcast but exotic with me. I am a roaring success with this "talking to girls who hate me" thing. I could teach a seminar. Or a webinar, or whatever, just to show that I'm down with technology.

_"Trust me," _Alice thinks. I shoot a look at her, because - really? I kind of don't. She looks at her watch and gasps theatrically.

"I've got to go pick up Jasper," she says. "Edward, you can take Bella home, right?"

I nod, hoping that Rose and Emmett aren't still in my car. That could be hard to explain. "Oh, Bella, you know Emmett and Rose, right? Don't worry, they haven't been hanging out in my car long. And don't worry about the fact that I didn't leave the windows open a crack; they don't need oxygen."

Bella frowns slightly. "You don't have to do that, Edward." She picks at the label on her beer bottle. "I can take the bus or something."

"I don't mind at all," I say, trying to give her a charming smile. She's not looking at me. "It would give us a chance to talk about work stuff." Alice shakes her head minutely and thinks about how lame I am.

Bella looks at me cautiously, now that I've given up on my charming smile and am glaring at Alice. Of course.

"Okay," she says. "Let me finish my…" Bella picks up her beer, frowning slightly. She thinks she's almost done, but Alice and I have been switching our full drinks for her half-full ones. She thinks she's had two beers but she's actually had closer to four. Vampire drinking game.

"I, uh…" Bella suddenly realizes that her level of inebriation might be more than she thought. She's not _drunk,_ but she certainly isn't ready to recite the alphabet backwards or anything. If that's your idea of a good time.

"Come on," I say, standing up and taking her elbow gently. "Let's get going."

She stands and looks up at me, a little disoriented. I feel as though getting humans inebriated in order to gain the upper hand is shady, but it doesn't stop me from patting myself on the back. Bella's big brown eyes looking up at me with just a hint of vulnerability make me feel pretty awesome, actually. It's the first time in our tempestuous relationship that I don't feel like I'm on shaky ground. I know, I'm kind of a scumbag myself. Sue me.

I give Alice a wink and pull Bella with me out of the bar. I am relieved to see that Rose and Emmett have vacated my car. That would have been awkward.

Bella is pretty quiet so I decide to try to draw her out. Unfortunately, I have no sense of timing or subtlety, so I go right for the conversational jugular and ask about Spencer.

"So what's up with that guy, Spencer?" I ask, since I allegedly have no knowledge of Spencer-Gate.

Bella gives a little laugh and curls up a little in the passenger seat. It's cute. Not even a little bit safe in case of an automobile collision, but cute.

"There's not really much happening there," she says, with a laugh.

"You guys break up?" I ask. She raises an eyebrow at me.

"Are we besties now?" she asks with a smirk. "Because I am not painting your toenails. I hate feet."

"No," I say. "Just curious. Besides, Emmett paints my toenails. I don't want him getting jealous."

Bella laughs and leans her head on the headrest, her eyes sliding closed. Yep, tipsy.

"I'm not heart-broken. I was just angling for a date for Thanksgiving."

"Thanksgiving's a big dating holiday for you?" I ask, surprised. Humans, they're weird.

"No," she says, looking at the ceiling. "It's just that I have to go to my dad's girlfriend's house for Thanksgiving, and my ex-boyfriend and his fiancée will be there, and I just thinking that having someone there with me would be a little less uncomfortable." Bella waves a hand dismissively. "It's cool. I'm sure there'll be some seven foot-tall pre-teen I can suck face with or something."

I look at her with alarm and I am just about to offer to go with her - especially if there's face-sucking involved - if for nothing else than to help her avoid an inconvenient corrupting a minor charge, when something occurs to me.

"Seven foot-tall pre-teen? Where does your dad's girlfriend live?" I ask, although I fear I know the answer already.

"La Push," she says. "They're all crazy tall. Jake went from being a normal sized guy to looking like a high school gymnasium overnight." She shakes her head. "Weird, huh?"

"Weird," I confirm. Except that it's not just weird, it's completely perverse that Bella Swan seems to have a penchant for attracting the supernatural. Present company included. The fact that she has yet to catch on to any of it is a tribute to her devotion to all those literary and cinematic vampires. Her head is so full of misconceptions about the paranormal that she can't see the vampires and werewolves trying to date her.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that we have had an alcohol-fueled glasnost tonight, the last thing I am capable of doing is offering to be her Thanksgiving date. The wolves are a little funny about us hanging out on the Rez. Bummer, huh?

"Well, making out with a pre-teen might not be the best idea," I say. Bella giggles and rolls her head off of the headrest and looks at me again.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," she says. "So what do _you_ do for Thanksgiving?"

"Eat turkeys," I say, not mentioning that we don't have them with sweet potatoes or anything. "Watch football. Rose usually convinces me to volunteer at the women's shelter in Port Angeles."

Bella looks at me with what might be admiration. "That's really…selfless of you, Edward. I didn't think you did stuff like that."

"What, like nice stuff?" I ask. I decide not to tell her it's because Rose usually threatens me. I might be able to capitalize on this whole "Edward's not a total dirtbag" thing she seems to be contemplating. "Yeah, I'm quite the Samaritan. I was doing that whole Big Brother thing for a while, too, but I think I intimidated the little kids." The truth is that none of them wanted me for a Big Brother because they were either frightened of me or thought I dressed like a dork. Kids these days.

"I had no idea," she says, looking at me thoughtfully.

I don't really know what to say next that won't make it sound like I'm bragging about myself and, honestly, I don't have a huge wealth of experience volunteering and stuff, so we're quiet for a while. Until I notice this weird little breathing sound, and I look at Bella and realized that she has fallen asleep. So much for the whole "getting a couple of drinks in her so she'd be more willing to be nice to me" idea.

I would love to tell you that there was a tender, we-almost-kissed moment when I dropped Bella off at home, but what really happened is that right as I was going to wake her up my phone rang and, of course, it was on ultra loud and Emmett had programmed it to play some obnoxious song. Bella woke with a start, wiped some (adorable) drool off of her face and scrambled over herself to get out of the Volvo.

I jump out of the car, follow her to the door and manage to catch her before she gets inside. It was only because she was a little drunk and fumbling for her keys and I am a speedy vampire, to be honest.

She got the door open and then turned to thank me. I did that pointed "looking over her shoulder into the house thing," hoping to snare an invite into the Swan abode. I also invaded her space a little bit.

"Um, thank you for the ride, Edward," she says, her eyes flickering up to me self-consciously. In a move that I really hope was smooth and not creepy, I leaned forward with my hand on the doorframe.

"Anytime, Bella," I say, smiling down at her. She stares into my eyes for a second and then looks away awkwardly.

"Yeah, uh, thanks again," she says, and slips into the house and closes the door. I stare at the door for a minute, wondering exactly where I went wrong with my vibe.

I'm figuring the only way to figure out why I didn't even get a "Would you like to come in for coffee?" is to ask my family. But then I think about the wooing histories of my family, which pretty much consisted of "I just turned you into a vampire. Wanna make out?" coupled with some, "Oh, shit. I'm a vampire. Yeah, that sounds cool."

Then I think of Angela. Sweet, smart, best friend I've ever had that doesn't drink blood Angela. Perfect.

I manage to run the whole thing down for Angela the next day before Bella comes in, leaving out the parts that make it sound like I sabotaged Bella's relationship with the scumbag or that I'm a vampire.

Angela looks at me with tenderness when I get finished. But, she's thinking I'm a little bit dense.

"So you're asking me why Bella didn't catch on that you were trying to get closer to her?" Angela asks me. I nod. Angela takes a deep breath and tries to think of nice ways to tell me that she thinks I'm a little dense.

"I think you have to be patient," Angela says. "You have been…kind of a jerk to her. I know you like her now, but most people just can't change gears that fast, Edward. I'm sure she has no idea that you like her."

"Oh," I say, contemplating ways to let Bella know that I like her that don't involve me embarrassing myself if she doesn't like me. The first one I can think of is having Angela ask her.

Angela doesn't think that's a good idea, needless to say. She suggests that it might come off a little immature.

"I think your best plan is just to continue not being mean to her and see what happens," Angela says. "I think you need to give her some time to adjust to the nice version of you before you start…talking about her inviting you in for…_coffee_."

Angela says it as if coffee is a euphemism for something that isn't coffee. Then, listening to her thoughts, I realize that it _is _a euphemism for something that isn't coffee. In my defense, I haven't ever had coffee. Or _that._

Bella shows up at noon with Alice, whose presence I'm beginning to feel a little better about since she snagged me some alone-time with Bella last night. But what is perplexing to me is that she can allegedly see the future, but it doesn't seem to be helping me out as much as it should. I mean, why can't Alice just be like "Do this thing and then this other thing and everything will be cool and you'll have a date for New Year's guaranteed"? When I ask her she just says something about the future changing constantly and how Bella's future is sometimes hard to see. It doesn't really do me that much good then, does it? Well, at least she keeps her husband and his unseemly pants out of the bookstore, for the most part.

Alice asks me for help with something and pulls me into what is rapidly turning into a real-looking coffee shop. I can tell from her thoughts that she's concerned, though.

"What's wrong?" I ask. Alice shakes her head in confusion.

"I was asking Bella if she would think about managing my shop when it opens, you know, for like when it's sunny and stuff." Alice elaborates.

"Yeah, and I care why?" I am impatient for her to spit it out.

"She told me that she's planning on going back to school in Seattle in the spring, now that her Dad's feeling better," Alice says, frowning.

I nod slowly. "Well, that's inconvenient, but I know how to drive. It's not like I won't be able to see her." Alice shakes her head sharply at me.

"That's just it, I can't see her there at all," she says. "There are these chunks of time that just disappear for her. For example, I can't see her on Thanksgiving, but I can tell she'll be here for Christmas." Alice shows me a vision of Bella helping decorate the store. Ryan is wearing those dumb reindeer antlers.

"She's going to La Push for Thanksgiving," I say. "Maybe the wolves make it hard for you to see her."

"That makes sense, but why would she disappear after the end of the year? Would she move out there for any reason?" Alice looks perplexed.

"Her ex-boyfriend lives out there. She didn't seem excited to go out there for Thanksgiving, frankly," I shake my head, looking at Alice.

"Well, the only other thing that could make someone disappear like that would be death," Alice says.

"Death in the 'I'm gone forever' way or death in the 'Oh, look! I like Edward so much I want to be a vampire' way?" I ask, but I know the answer.

Alice shakes her head. "'Dead' dead," she says.

"So what do we do?" I ask. I don't want Bella 'dead' dead. I'm going to stop it from happening even if I have to kill her.

**a/n: Thanks so much for the reviews, recommendations and for reading this nonsense. Every time I update I swear I am going to a) find time to respond to reviews and b) not take two weeks to update again. So far I've not been as successful as I would like. I'm in the middle of creating a professional portfolio for my credential so I might continue to be remiss in updating and replying. You understand why it might be hard for me to find evidence of my professionalism. ; )**

**Thanks again! **

**xoxo JuJu**


	11. Employee Turnover

**a/n: BTW, it's not mine.**

Speaking of dogs, Carlisle and I had this heated discussion in 1962 about psychological theory. He had been thinking about taking a job in a psych hospital and I was trying very hard to dissuade him, mostly because treatment for mental illness wasn't really very sophisticated in those days and I figured it would be depressing to hear Carlisle think about lobotomies and electroshock therapy all the time. Also, because I didn't want to live in Cleveland. For the same reason, pretty much. Too depressing. _ I_ would end up needing therapy.

I'll spare you the boring details, but I will tell you that for all of his talk about "choices" and "free will", Carlisle is a pretty serious adherent to Pavlov's theory of operant conditioning. That's right; Mr. "Moral Fiber" is a total behaviorist. Hypocritical, right?

On a side note, you would think that an intelligent, 300-year-old man like Carlisle would know better than to argue with a mind reader. Seriously, I had nothing better to do than to listen to the inner workings of people's minds for three decades - you'd think he'd have given me the benefit of the doubt when I told him that conditioned responses just couldn't explain every ridiculous thing that human beings did. Look at New Jersey.

But I digress. My point in bringing this up is, despite the fact that I think that behavior modification only works with dogs, I began giving some serious thought to how I could duplicate the experiment. (You know, the one where Bella got tipsy and I got some alone time with her?) I know this sounds creepy, but honestly? I'm a vampire. Creepy is a given.

So, what with Alice's little mental blind spots, trying to get the coffee shop open for Black Friday, and the bunch of crap that Esme wanted us to do, I could barely talk to Bella before Thanksgiving, let alone engineer another inebriated late-night encounter.

I spend Thanksgiving, predictably, watching football and then dishing out yams to Port Angeles' downtrodden. At least it buys me some slack with Rose. Unlike Emmett, who decided that the "American Idol" marathon was more important than doing something nice for people, and will therefore spend the next week being shunned by his wife, and by the rest of us, if we know what's good for us.

I will admit, just between us, that I was dressed for work on Thursday a good seven hours before I needed to be there. I also might or might not have rehearsed what I wanted to say to Bella a couple times in the mirror.

It was all for naught, however, because I don't get a chance to speak to Bella all day, we're so busy. All I get is a brief, "it was fine," and a quick eye roll when I ask her how her Thanksgiving had gone.

It was small consolation that I _do_ have a coworker who wants to speak to me, a female no less. As I'm closing up for the day, a bit disappointed that Bella had already gone home and I haven't had a chance to "touch base," as they say, Angela asks if she can speak with me.

I should mention that Angela had been in an effusive mood all day, but I had been too preoccupied with my own concerns to ask what had her so happy. Because I am a bad friend.

"I just wanted to tell you," Angela say to me, with a brilliant smile. "I felt really… inspired by you. So inspired that I made a decision."

I look at her quizzically. "You know how my dad wouldn't let me move to Seattle because he was worried about Ben and I?" she continues.

I nod. Angela's dad was a minister and had insisted that Angela stay at home while her boyfriend went to school at the University of Washington. Because that's all it takes to get two kids to not sleep together, right? Really, it had just made Angela sad and Ben even weirder. The last time I saw him he was just a little too into online role-playing.

"Well, I decided if you have the guts to go after someone who doesn't like you…"

I clear my throat at her and she laughs. "You know what I mean! I figured if you had the guts to go after what you wanted, so could I. I'm moving to Seattle. My dad is mad, but he'll get over it." Angela shrugs her shoulders. Honestly, she doesn't seem that concerned about her dad's response. Which is kind of funny because I'm like six times older than her and I am afraid to move out of my "dad's" house. Mostly she looks really...happy. So happy that I decide not to give her a big guilt trip about how she's my best human friend and how can she abandon me. I think about it, though.

I assume that the "living in sin" scandal of 2011 will have little other effect on me besides taking away my only confidant with a pulse, so I am ill-prepared for the trap I walk into on the Tuesday morning after my day off. A day off that I spent installing sound insulation in Alice and Jasper's new room, by the way. This house is just not built for vampire hearing, especially when one of the vampires in question is feeling a little sensitive about his lack of…companionship. But that's beside the point.

I haven't seen Bella in two days, so I'm looking forward to seeing her as I get into work that morning.

She's not due in to work until noon, so I spend the morning getting as much of my ordering done as I can so that I can work with Bella in the afternoon. I know that Ryan has assigned her to work on setting up the Christmas decorations, and I'm hoping that hanging garlands and stringing lights around bookshelves is her idea of a good time. Unfortunately, all this will be accompanied by hideous Christmas music, at least until Ryan leaves at 6 o'clock, at which point we can put something on that isn't Mannheim Steamroller or "Let There Be Drums".

You can imagine my shock when Ryan, walking towards me with a dark-skinned woman in tow, interrupts my planning. A somewhat… lupine young lady.

He didn't! I'm all for cultural and species diversity, but Ryan has gone and hired himself a werewolf - or a shape shifter, if you prefer. Dammit! We'll never get that smell out of the carpets.

"Edward," Ryan says, beaming at me. "I want you to meet our new employee. Leah, this is Edward, my assistant manager. Edward, Leah Clearwater."

Cue sound of screeching tires here. I have to admit that I stare at wolf-girl for a minute before offering my once good-smelling hand to her. She winces imperceptibly but retains the friendly smile on her face. In her thoughts is…_Bella?_

I stare at her. "Nice to meet you, Leah," I say, not meaning it.

Ryan looks over his shoulder at the registers, where Jessica seems to be struggling with the concept of taking a customer's money in exchange for product.

"Hey, Edward, can you show Leah where the back door is and where to park? She's coming in early Wednesday for her first day." I nod at Ryan and gesture Leah to the back of the store. As soon as we get outside I turn to her and scowl.

"You _have_ to work here? You can't get a job as a service dog or something?" Leah rolls her eyes at me but doesn't say the rude retort that's in her head. Too bad I can read her furry mind, right?

"Listen, it's not like there's a lot of jobs on the rez. I thought you, of all people, would understand trying to _fit in_. You ghouls don't even need the money!"

"How well do you know Bella? You were thinking about her in there." I consider that, if this is a friend of hers, maybe playing nice will get me an insider advantage. Unfortunately, Leah winces and thinks about a tall, dark-haired man. _Her imprint, Jacob._

"Holy shit! Are you kidding me! You're the one who imprinted on her old boyfriend!"

"We imprinted on each other," she says, raising her chin at me.

"I don't care if you're blood brothers! You're really going to make her see you everyday at work? That's just cruel!"

"What do you care, you overgrown mosquito?" She cocks an eyebrow at me.

"Besides," she continues. "She and I are going to be step-sisters soon enough. She may as well get used to it." I can see in the dog-brain that she actually feels bad for what happened, but doesn't want it to get in the way of her mom's happiness with the Chief. Her getting a job here is a way for her to show Sue and Charlie that she and Bella can get along just fine. It's kind of admirable in a "pissing me off" way.

"Well, park over there, and keep your resume updated because there is no way that this is working out." I glare at her one last time before walking back in and closing the door on her.

I find Ryan and drag him into the coffee shop so Jessica can't overhear.

"You can't hire her," I say to him, looking him in the eye.

"It's too late," he says, waving to Alice. Who didn't see any of this coming. Useless. I've had Magic 8 Balls that worked better than her.

"You have to tell her something. She can't work here," I insist. Ryan hears the seriousness of my voice and looks at me curiously.

"What's the problem?" he says.

"She stole Bella's boyfriend from her in high school. Bella will be totally uncomfortable." Ryan raises an eyebrow at me.

"I don't get it. First you hate her; now you guys are buddies? Bella is an adult; she'll handle it."

"Ryan, come on," I say, practically begging. "Please?" OK, that's actually begging, no "practically" about it.

"I can't, Edward," Ryan says, holding up his palms helplessly. "We need someone to replace Angela and she had a good application. Plus, I already hired her. It's done."

I scowl at Ryan and walk back into the store, where I throw myself into getting my ordering done and thinking about smothering Ryan with a pillow. Or slicing his neck with one of his Christmas cds.

Unfortunately, talking about the "Leah" situation with Ryan was an enormous tactical error. I guess some girls, Bella among them, get embarrassed when their bosses know that kind of stuff about their love lives. That moron Ryan threw me under the bus, telling Bella that I was the one who told him. Within ten minutes of getting to work, Bella had gone from feeling neutral on the subject of me to feeling something more akin to "fuck that guy for telling Ryan something I told him in confidence." That's actually a direct quote.

Alice tries to console me after Bella walks past me with a box of Christmas cards and a scowl.

"You didn't know," she says. "Maybe Bella will understand that you meant to be helpful."

"You use the word 'maybe' an awful lot for someone who is supposed to see the future, Alice." I hunch against the wall that separates the store from the coffee shop, watching Bella ignore me.

"I don't know what it is," she says, frowning. "I've never had anything like it happen to me before. Things will be clear, and then they get all blurry and whole sections of time just disappear."

"Well, I'm off work. I guess if she won't talk to me I'll just go home and wallow there. It's either that or slip ecstasy into her latte."

Alice gasps. "You can't do that! It's totally illegal and she could get sick!"

I stare at her blankly. "It was a joke, Alice," I say, rolling my eyes at her. Alice nods at me, preoccupied.

"You could try anti-depressants, though…" she says, her eyes hazy.

"You spent too much time with the Volturi. I don't think that slipping a girl drugs is an ethical way to get her to like you."

"Fine," Alice says, shrugging. "Do it the hard way." She fixes her chin at me and says, more certain: "You know, I think that there are two kinds of people. Those who do whatever it takes to get the one they love, and those who just don't love that person that much."

"That's crazy," I say. "Besides, I'm not really _in love_ with her. I'm just _interested_ in her. There's a difference."

"The difference between being willing to take a risk and wallowing at home with Emmett," Alice huffs.

"I'm not talking to Emmett," I remind her. "Rose would be pissed."

I've had things go south with Bella because of my own stubborn assholishness, but I never expected to piss her off with my efforts to _protect her_. This "relationship" thing is complicated. I guess that explains the entire popular music industry, huh? Except that one song, "Green Onions." I _still_ don't know what that one's about.

**a/n: Where to begin? Three weeks is a really long time to wait for an update this banal. A thousand apologies. You know me, I am a slave to plot.**

**Big groveling thanks to Raum, Darcy's Mom and PurelyAmuse for recc'ing this nonsense on their blogs as well as all the others who peddle my brand of crazy on ADF, Twitter and elsewhere. You guys deserve more than I am emotionally equipped to give you.**

**I appreciate all you guys who are reading, reviewing and otherwise enabling my insanity. xoxo JuJu**


	12. Background Checks

**a/n: Twilight=not mine**

We vampires tend to need lots of projects to keep us busy. Otherwise, the abundance of time, coupled with the lack of sleep and the never-ending tedium would drive us crazy. So, Rose has her women's group, and Emmett has television, and Esme has Renfield. Prior to this I had music and my job, but now I have a couple of new ways to spend my time. For one, I've been researching relationship advice.

Of course, there are some differences of opinion based upon whom you talk to. While many sources claim that honesty is important, I find that others emphasize the need for the "little white lie." Like, "No, that dress looks great on you," or "Your vacation photos are really interesting," or "Yes, Esme, I think the dining room would look great in burgundy." Carlisle denies that this last one was a lie, but I guess burgundy was just a little overused in Victorian times and even _he's_ tired of it. You can't lie to a mind reader.

Another area of controversy is the assertion that couples should have common interests. I read this in "Cosmopolitan", but Emmett swears Dr. Phil said that it was a relationship myth. Apparently the good doctor said that it was beneficial for couples to have separate interests so they didn't get sick of each other. But I have a healthy amount of skepticism about anything that Emmett says, so I decide it wouldn't hurt to explore Bella's interests a little bit. So, I'm watching this show about vampires that Emmett says is really popular. But I'm having a hard time understanding it.

"So she's dating the good one but she likes the bad one?" I ask Emmett. Emmett nods, eyes glued to the TV.

"And then there's that woman that looks just like her but she's a vampire?" I ask.

"Yeah, and the vampire one likes the blonde guy but not the dark- haired guy," Emmett says, gesturing towards the two heavily made-up actors. They _do_ have kind of a smouldery look, even the good brother. I practice the look. A laugh comes from the doorway of the family room. I look up, horrified, to see Carlisle.

"Are you okay?" he asks, smirking. "It looked like you had a problem with your face there for a minute."

"Ha ha," I say, scowling at him. "You're always telling us we need to fit in better. I'm just practicing."

"Someone's going to call the ambulance if you make that face out in public," Carlisle says. Emmett laughs, and I reach out and flick the remote out of his hand. Which breaks it into about fifty little pieces.

"Dick," Emmett breathes and stomps out of the room. I know he has back-up remotes. This has happened way too many times for him not to. Like the time he got so upset about the judging in "The Voice" that he squeezed the remote.

"Speaking of medical conditions, how's the chief?" I ask. I know Carlisle was seeing Bella's dad today, and I also know that he is going to try to not violate confidentiality. Additionally, I know that I can get the information out of him if I just pester him about it enough.

"You know I can't tell you that," Carlisle says, shaking a finger at me. I get an image of Charlie in his office with…a woman that I am assuming is his girlfriend; an older, dark haired woman.

"You know I'll get it anyway," I answer, shaking my finger back at him. Carlisle laughs nervously at me and turns around to leave the room. I follow him.

"So, did you have any tests done?" I ask him, following him into the kitchen.

Carlisle looks over his shoulder at me and shakes his head "no." He's trying to recite the 1st chapter of "A Tale of Two Cities", but the image that pops into his head is of the screen of his computer and an open document. Hmmm, interesting. It looks like Charlie got sent to a specialist, probably a cardiologist.

"Someone in Port Angeles?" I ask, sidling up to Carlisle, who was looking out the kitchen window at Esme in the garden. He changes his tack and starts imagining Mr. Monroe from the grocery store, naked. Gross.

It's a nice try but I have a secret weapon. Esme. I walk out to the garden and Carlisle follows me, walking right into my trap. Sucker.

"Carlisle, you know that I'm only asking you about this because I like Bella," I whine, making sure Esme can hear me. "I don't know why you won't help me with this."

Esme takes the bait. "Carlisle, is Edward asking you for help?" She shakes her head at Carlisle disapprovingly. She gives me that sweet, motherly look that says, "Dear God, I wish you'd find a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. I don't care which." I know that's a lot to communicate, but it's a lot of look.

"Esme, you know I can't break confidentiality," Carlisle says, frowning at her. In the meantime, Carlisle is sifting through information about the chief, giving me the opportunity to "look over his shoulder." Charlie Swan's visit with the cardiologist in Port Angeles went surprisingly well. But there's more, I can tell.

"We have had Edward falsify records, read minds and steal evidence of our existence for eighty years and you can't help him out by telling him how this girl's father's check-up went?" Esme is getting irritated. Which only works in my favor.

Carlisle sighs and turns to me, loosening his tie. "Charlie met with a cardiologist in Port Angeles and he's doing fine." I give him the "continue" sign, waving my hand.

He sighs again and mumbles, "manipulative mind-reading brat," before continuing. "I was looking over my records and Charlie was actually getting healthier when he had the heart attack. He had lost ten pounds and his cholesterol was dropping. I think it was Sue's influence."

"So…" I raise an eyebrow at him. Then I see it. "You're wondering why Bella moved back to take care of him." I say. Carlisle nods.

"She lived with him for two years while you were in Alaska, hiding. He lost a little weight just by not eating diner food every night, but not like this. When he started dating Sue he started eating healthier, exercising."

"So Bella didn't move back here to take care of him," I say. "So why did she say that's what she was doing?"

Carlisle shakes his head again. "I don't know. But when I asked after Bella, Charlie said she was fine - but he glanced at his girlfriend first, like he was worried or unhappy."

"You could go talk to the Chief, Edward," Esme suggested, with that helpful, earnest look on her face that just breaks my heart. Esme has never been willing to believe that I am the jerk I really am. Not matter how much evidence she sees to the contrary.

"Yeah, I think that would just make her even madder at me, if I went snooping around her dad." I let my shoulders slump just so I can get some sympathy and affection from Esme. What? It works!

I swear not to try to pry information out of the Chief, but when I run into him outside the Fork's diner two nights later I figure a little, tiny bit of prodding can't hurt.

"Chief Swan," I say, extending a frosty hand. 'We haven't met. I'm Edward, Carlisle's son."

Chief Swan looks at me through narrowed eyes, and I can hear that Bella has spoken in a…less than complimentary way about me to her father.

"How are you feeling?" I ask, forging ahead despite the Chief's unpleasant thoughts about me, none of which are actually feasible, given the resilience of my vampire ass to kicks from human feet.

"I'm alright," the Chief mumbles. "You work with Bella." This is a statement.

"Yes, sir," I say. "You must feel lucky to have your daughter come back from school to take care of you." The Chief's eyebrow twitches upward at this, a gesture that looks way more attractive when his daughter does it. I have surprised him.

"Yeah, I, uh, I mean, it's nice to have her back at home," the Chief mumbles again, and then gives me a wave as he walks out to the cruiser. I can see through the confusion that Bella's dad is also….worried about her. I can't determine why, however, and have to let it go for now.

It's almost Christmas, the worst time of year to work retail, so I don't really get to talk to Bella at all over the next week. However, our company Christmas party seems like it's going to be the perfect opportunity to "make nice," so I start planning a multi-pronged attack.

My plan is actually a combination of niceness, a majorly cool gift which it won't be awkward to give her because I bribed Ryan to give me her name in the gift exchange, and the first public appearance of my new "dangerous vampire" look that I have been secretly developing.

I am at work making a deliberate effort not to bug Bella, which actually requires that I be in the office because if I am out on the floor I will stare at her and then she'll catch me and it'll be awkward. Not that that's happened.

I'm working on the schedule when I see that Jessica has asked for three mornings off right before Christmas. I call her back to the office.

"Jessica, why are you asking for these mornings off? You know it's our busiest time of the year." Jessica pouts. She had some creative ideas about why I was calling her back here. Creative, horrifying ideas.

"I have finals that week," she says, flipping her hair. "It's ridiculous. They scheduled finals at seven in the morning that week." Jessica is thinking about her "beauty sleep." God, I hate it when humans think about sleep. They don't know how lucky they have it. I contemplate telling Jessica that I haven't gotten any beauty sleep since the year the Russian royal family got assassinated.

"Anyway, Bella said she would cover for me," Jessica interrupts my reverie.

"Bella doesn't have finals?" I ask, my ears, of course, perking up when her name is mentioned.

"I guess not. She said she'd work for me," Jessica has moved on to picking at her nail polish. Gross.

I contemplate what kind of classes Jessica could be taking at Port Angeles Community that she thinks it would be feasible to pass. Maybe "Beginning Public Grooming", or "Resisting Learning How to Make Change for Pros".

"Alright," I say, gesturing for Jessica to get her raggedy cuticles out of the office. This buys me a little more Bella-Edward time next week. I anticipate everything will be warm and amicable, if not better, after my Christmas party plan achieves its objectives.

By the night of the company Christmas party I am anxious to finally make some forward progress with the recalcitrant Miss Swan. I check my outfit carefully.  
>With Rosalie's approval I had gotten a pair of actual jeans and a black shirt that I would wear – shockingly – without a tie. My normally strictly contained hair was more "mussed", as my dear sister put it. (I had also practiced my smouldery vampire look in the mirror but, truthfully, I wasn't too convinced that it was ready.)<p>

I grab my carefully wrapped present from my desk and pull on a leather jacket that Jasper lent me. I drive over to the bowling alley where the party is being held, looking around the Volvo to make sure that it was clean. I mean, what if I had the opportunity to give Bella a ride home and she got offended by Emmett's weird garbage?

I see her immediately, leaning against the jukebox. She looks beautiful, wearing a soft-looking royal blue sweater and dark jeans, her soft brown hair down around her shoulders. She's wearing someone else's shoes, but that's what bowling's all about, right?

As I approach her, I happen to recall the conversation I had had with Jessica and it occurs to me that, before I start with the heavy groveling/romancing, maybe I should make sure and clarify some scheduling issues.

"Hi, Bella," I say, stopping next to her. Her eyes widen slightly at my ensemble (I assume), and then her standard look of barely restrained irritation takes over again.

"Hi, Edward," she answers, looking around, obviously for a way out of this conversation. "Look, I…." she starts to say, moving away from me, clearly set upon escaping.

"I have a few things I want to ask you about," I interrupt, pulling the "Your Supervisor" card. She sighs and moves back into place.

"I wanted to check in about the schedule for next week." She looks at me….anxiously? I can see the wariness on her face. "Jessica said that you offered to cover for her while she took her finals, and I wanted to get_ your_ schedule." She looks at me, nostrils flaring slightly. "I mean," I continue nervously, "I know you're in school too, and I wanted to see if I needed to change the schedule to accommodate your tests and…"

"Fine, Edward!" she snaps suddenly, in a sharp whisper. "You win, okay?" Her voice rises and I can tell that people are starting to look at us.

"You have been on my case for months now, and this is it! You win!" she repeats, her voice nearly a yell now. "You have managed to uncover every nasty truth about me, Edward! You're right, I am a lousy employee. I dropped out of school, not once but twice now. My boyfriend left me and you made sure everyone knew about it. And my dad? He never needed me to take care of him! I just said that to hide the fact that I was coming home a failure!"

Bella is fully ranting, and I try to make soothing arm motions at her, but she is furious.

"You win, Edward! I don't know what your problem is with me, but you've managed to expose me for the loser I am! I hope you're happy!" Bella storms away from the jukebox while I just stand there, staring at her, my awesome gift exchange present in hand. I watch her storm out of the bowling alley, and then I just stare at the door. My plan definitely did not go the way I intended it.

"Edward," I hear a voice at my elbow and I look down to see Alice. Her pale face seems even whiter than normal.

"You have to go after her," Alice rubs her temples and I can see that her visions are still really foggy but I can see….Bella and….a blond man, a struggle and…blood?

"What's going on, Alice?" I ask, panicked. She rubs her temples again and looks at me.

"I don't know, but I think…I think it's bad."

You might ask yourself, how could it get any worse?

**a/n: A multitude of fawning, obsequious thanks-yous to Betham for beta'ing this. It's ridiculous how hard she has to work. My new thing is changing tense half-way through. I have no idea why. **

**Additional kudos to all the people who pimp this travesty despite the fact that it's got to ruin their reputations. Thank you for reading and reviewing and generally cosigning my freakishness. Xoxo JuJu**


	13. Hazard Pay

**a/n: I don't own it. Really.**

I run out of the bowling alley at what I hope is a normal speed. I know that our co-workers are staring at me. I can hear Ryan and Jessica thinking that Bella has finally just snapped and will hopefully slap me silly. Leah - dear, sweet Leah - is hoping Bella and I just quit bickering and "get a room, already." I have to contain a flash of delusional hope at this one before remembering that Bella is actually in danger, and also that she hates me and is unlikely to want to do anything with me which would require us being alone in a room.

I am at the door when I glance back at Alice. She gives me a frantic nod to continue. I push through the door and, not seeing anyone in the parking lot, I sniff the air outside the bowling alley. Right away I can smell Bella's scrumptious blood and, of all the ridiculous, screwed-up things to smell in a small town already occupied by seven vampires and who knows how many fucking werewolves, I can smell an unfamiliar vampire.

I track the offending smell around the corner and, to my horror, I see the blond guy from Alice's vision - and he has Bella in his arms. She's drooping towards the ground, with his face buried in her neck.

This is bad. Very, very bad.

He's the only one of our kind I can see out here and I'm pretty sure I can take him, so I make a dive for him, knocking Bella out of his arms in an unfortunately rough manner. But I don't have time to make the concrete comfortable for her, because as I'm grabbing him I feel someone else, another vampire, latch onto my back and start to pull. Two against one is totally unfair, by the way.

I clench my arms tighter around the man and try to dig my teeth into the only thing I can reach: his scalp. Which is gross but, whatever. I'm trying to convince myself that I can pull his head off with my teeth before the banshee on my back tears my head off.

To my relief, I see Jasper out of the corner of my eye and am relieved to feel him pull the creature off my back. It's a frantic, screeching, red-haired vampire. The nice thing about the screeching, however, is that it distracts the blond and I am able to get a better grip on his neck. He's strong, but I am taller than him, which I think gives me an advantage. I'm pretty sure that's how physics works.

I am able to slam his head on the concrete of the alley a few times and, while he is momentarily stunned, I pull his head mostly off. It's going to have to be close enough for now because Jasper is having some trouble holding on to the ginger. She's now trying to escape, but I'm pretty sure that's a bad idea.

He's got her by the waist but she keeps slipping out of his grasp. I grab onto her shoulders so we can wrestle her to the ground and behead her as well. Then we have to go back and finish the job with the guy before we can even see if Bella's OK.

As I lean over Bella, Alice comes skidding around the corner.

"Thanks for the advance notice," I say, checking Bella's pulse. I could smell the blood coming from the exposed bite on her neck, but I am frankly too concerned about her well-being to even think about munching on her. I think that means I like her, yes?

She's got a pulse, but she is shaking hard and her eyes are clenched closed.

"Bella, can you hear me?" I ask, pulling her into my arms and trying to check for other injuries. Her body is twisting in my arms progressively harder and I realize what is happening as a vision of it hits me from Alice's head. Bella is changing due to the blonde vampire's venom. I look at Alice, panicked. "Can I…"

My voice trails off as, _this time,_ she can tell what I'm going to say and shakes her head. "You can't stop it. You've got two choices; let her change, or…" She shows me an image of Jasper snapping Bella's neck in this very alley. I shudder at the image and look at Bella, stunned by the enormity of this decision.

"I've got to go back inside or people will come out here," Alice says. "Emmett will be here in five minutes to help clean up."

She gestures to the mess of vampire parts strewn around the alley. "He can either help you stage something, or drive her back to the house." Alice's words are firm. I have to make a decision. On one hand, Bella hates me and letting her change will keep her tied to me for the foreseeable future. On the other hand, letting her change will keep her tied to me for the foreseeable future. When I think about it like that, it's not a hard decision. I mean, she likes vampires, right? Surely she'll like being one.

With that upbeat thought I glance at Jasper, who is trying to get blood off his boots. He meets my gaze and frowns.

"What?" he asks. I stand up, Bella in my arms, and gesture to the mess in the alley.

"I wouldn't clean yourself up too much," I say. "You've still got all this to deal with."

"_I've _got to clean it up?" Jasper asks, irritated. "I was saving your sorry, sparkly hide. _You_ clean it up!"

"I've got to take care of Bella," I say, gesturing to her with my chin since my arms are full.

"You've got to supervise her while she's screaming?" he asks. He's right about one thing, she starting to get a little loud. I hope Emmett gets here soon.

"Yeah, I've got to comfort her," I say. I also think that there is a distinct possibility this is the only time I'll have a woman screaming in my arms.

Jasper shrugs and starts picking up the vampire fragments with a resigned sigh. Emmett rolls up in his Escalade in moments, thankfully. I'm not sure how much more screaming the Forks Palace of Strikes can take.

"Dude!" Emmett says, tumbling out of the gigantic vehicle in surprise. Clearly Alice didn't tell him why he needed to get over here. "What did you guys do?"

"Edward's girlfriend got attacked by some nomads. I think he's going to keep it." Jasper gestures towards the squirming, trembling body in my arms.

"Man!" Emmett exclaims. "This is like in Batman when his parents get shot!"

"Will you two stop it!" I yell shrilly. They laugh at me and work on stuffing the vampire bits into the Escalade.

"Jasper, you drive my car and I'll ride with Emmett," I say. I turn to Emmett and hand him Bella's squirming body.

"Holy shit," Emmett says, startled, and he looks for a minute like he's going to drop her. "Don't make me hold this!" He passes her over to an unsuspecting Jasper.

"Goddammit, Emmett!" Jasper says, looking at the twisting, shrieking mess in his hands while I try to find Bella's keys in her purse. Please remind me to never go through a woman's purse again. It's totally freaking me out. I'm deathly afraid I'm going to run into feminine hygiene products, or something else similarly creepy.

"Jesus. Take this," Jasper tries to pass her back to me.

"Guys. I'm trying to find her keys. Can you stop playing "Hot Potato" with her and give me a minute?" I find her keys and look up to see Emmett grabbing Bella's ass.

"Emmett!" He looks at me, wide-eyed and Jasper almost drops her.

"I'm just trying to take her from Jasper," Emmett says, his voice getting hysterical. "She's so squirmy!" I take her from Jasper and make a "tsk-ing" noise at Emmett.

"I would never grab the ass of a woman while she was being changed into a vampire, Edward," Emmett says defensively, pulling himself up at the shoulders and puffing out his chest. "You know me, Edward." I know that Emmett is telling the truth because, first of all, I read mind; and second, he's scared of his wife.

"Let's get going," I say, climbing into the Escalade with Bella. Once I get the door closed and I'm less nervous about people coming out and hearing her, I feel better.

I have to admit, I feel panicky about pulling this off without being revealed and I feel sorry for Bella that she has to go through the pain of changing, but I am also excited. Just as the moody and elusive Bella Swan was slipping away from my pretty much nonexistent grasp, she has landed very firmly in my lap. Literally and figuratively.

I just hope that she ends up being pleased by the choice I made. I guess if she's not happy I can just remind her that she'd be dead otherwise. Or I can come up with a slightly more sensitive tactic, but that's not really my strength, you know?

I'm distracted by these thoughts and I don't even realize that we've gotten home until Emmett shuts off the gas-guzzler and hops out whistling "Ring of Fire." I get out of the Escalade and carry Bella towards the house. Esme and Carlisle come out to greet me anxiously. Well, Carlisle is anxious and Esme is excited. Like me.

"Esme, I want to introduce you to Bella." I know it's not the way you envision bringing a girl home to meet your mom, you know, with vampire venom racing through her veins and a massive campaign of deception to plan, but what can I say? I'm a romantic.

"Oh, dear," Esme says. "Let's get her into the house and try to make her more comfortable." Esme fusses with Bella's coat briefly and then gestures for me to come into the house. "Rosalie, help Emmett burn those bodies," she yells into the house. I can hear Rosalie grumbling, but she passes us on her way out.

Esme gets the screamy new addition to the house settled into her and Carlisle's bed. I resolve to actually get a bed of my own the next day, but then I remember that we have yet to figure out how we're going to cover Bella's disappearance. I sit next to the bed, stroking her hair away from her face and trying to figure out what the best plan is.

My thoughts are interrupted, as they often are, by Emmett's shenanigans. I look out the window to see him playing air guitar and singing "Wild Thing." He drops to his knees and lights the vampire bodies in a perfect impression of Jimi Hendrix at the Monterey Pop Festival. God, the 1960's will just never die. Every time you think you're never going to have to think about it again, someone plays a Dylan song or wears bell-bottoms.

I am shaking my head at him when Alice and Jasper pull up in separate cars.

"What took you so long?" I ask as they come into the room. Alice has a sweater that I recognize as one of Bella's in her hand, and Jasper has a camera.

"We are planting evidence, and we had to get Bella's truck back to her house." I am seeing the plan in Alice's brain and I'm confused.

"She ran off with me?" I ask, frowning at her as she gestures for me to turn around.

"Yeah, you guys eloped," she says, prying Bella's hand out of mine. I start to turn back to the women but Alice stops me.

"I'm changing her sweater. Give her some privacy!"

"Alice, she needs a wardrobe change now? I don't get it."

"First of all, there was blood on her sweater. Second, we have to establish that the two of you had a secret relationship. That means we need a picture of the two of you together, with her not wearing what she was wearing tonight."

Jasper tosses me a shirt and I change mine, too.

"So we're going to take a picture of me holding her hand while she screams? That'll be comforting for Chief Swan to find."

Alice pulls on my arm and leads me back to my chair. She eyes me carefully.

"No, but I think we can make it look like a convincing kiss." She picks up Bella's mumbling, twisting body and sits her in my lap.

"Ok, you hold her in place and angle her face away from the camera a little." I maneuver Bella into a position I think I can hold her still in, but I'm worried it looks a little coercive.

Jasper stands a few feet away with the camera and adjusts his angle a little.

"Ok, now you kiss her," Alice says. I wince. This certainly isn't anyone's idea of a great first kiss. Not that it's bad. It's just weird and a little pervy.

A feeling that is compounded when Rose walks into the room.

"What are you guys doing?" she asks, clearly appalled by my lack of respect for a woman who is unconscious and being poisoned with vampire venom.

"Whoa, the Christmas card photo is gonna be great this year!" Emmett exclaims from behind her.

**a/n: First of all, a huge thank-you to Betham for beta'ing this. You wouldn't **_**believe **_**the juvenile stuff she has to fix in my writing. **

**Second of all, enormous, rolling-around-on-the-ground thanks to Katinki and The Fictionators for the lovely review yesterday. What Katinki doesn't know is that now we're pretty much just stalking each other because I've had a creepy love for her for some time now. So you can imagine how flattered I am. Here's a link, you know, if you want to check it out: / L1nK2f Just remove a bunch of spaces and .**

**Third of all, thank you for all the retweets, reviews and general niceness and willingness to read my stuff. And for being patient while I take weeks to update. I wish I could say it's because I'm polishing my work like the fine gem it is but really? I'm watching cat videos on Youtube and going to Giant's games.**

**Xoxo **

**JuJu**


	14. Sick Pay

_**a/n: I don't own it; I just mess with it as if it were mine.**_

The campaign to cover Bella Swan's absence from…well…life requires the following:

One creepily-made but none-the-less convincing make-out photo stashed in Bella's room.

Several purposefully vague love letters written by yours truly (edited by Alice since I have never actually written a love letter and apparently botched it, big time) snuck into her locker at work.

A piece of paper where Jasper, forging Bella's handwriting, wrote "Bella Cullen, Isabella Cullen, Bella Cullen, Mrs. Edward Cullen, Ms. Cullen," and on and on, ad nauseum, planted on the floor of her truck.

"Girls really do that?" Emmett asks Alice as she directs Jasper to draw a few hearts on the paper.

"Yeah, uh, Bella doesn't seem the type," I add. Alice glares at me.

"Because you know what her type is how, exactly?" Alice asks me. "From the five months you've wasted alienating her? Maybe it's the write-ups?"

I make a sputtering sound at Alice and she smirks knowingly. "Did you know she has a twitter?" Alice asks. I shake my head and Alice pulls out her iPhone, taps a few buttons and hands it to me.

"Satanismy…What the hell?" I wave the phone at Alice. "She's been tweeting about me?" I'm embarrassed, furious and…flattered, frankly. You don't spend this kind of time talking about someone unless you have _some_ interest in them, right?

"Yeah, that explains all those people who write about Hitler," Alice says when I mention my theory. Emmett snorts.

"Don't you have a show to watch or something?" I ask him, nodding towards the door.

"Nope," he says, snatching Alice's phone out of my hand and settling into a chair to read. He begins laughing almost immediately and I scowl at him.

"I'm going back to the dead-girl room, thank you very much," I say, striding out of the room. I don't need to take this kind of abuse from my family when I can wait for Bella to wake up and let _her_ abuse me.

Esme is trying to cool Bella off with a wet cloth while Carlisle checks her pulse and blood pressure.

"You told her that isn't going to help, right?" I ask Carlisle, gesturing towards Esme.

"You don't know that," Esme says.

"Yeah, but Carlisle does," I say. Carlisle shrugs his shoulders.

Esme drops the cloth and shakes her head at Carlisle.

"How is she?" I ask, looking nervously at Carlisle.

"It's been three hours," Carlisle says. "You realize that you've asked me that five times already?"

"What, you're willing to lie to _her_ to make her feel useful and you can't do the same for me?" I give Carlisle my best "injured" look.

"She's my mate," Carlisle says. "You're just some kid I bit."

"So, how is she?" I ask.

"You know that it's going to take three days for her to change, right?" Carlisle asks. "Because at the current rate you're asking me, you will ask me that 144 times before she wakes up and, barring any emergencies, the answer will be the same every time."

"Is this an example of your bedside manner?" I ask him. "Because between your history of biting your patients and this unhelpful attitude, I'm not sure you're a very good doctor."

"Honey, I know you're nervous, but don't take it out on Carlisle," Esme says, smoothing Bella's hair where she messed it up with her changing-into-a-vampire thrashing.

"So, what's the plan?" Carlisle asks, putting away the blood pressure cuff.

"Well, apparently Bella and I were dating secretly, and we decided that Forks couldn't contain our love anymore. We ran away together."

"That's so romantic." Esme makes a swooning gesture with her hand to her forehead.

"Yeah, right up until Emmett starts singing 'Jack and Diane,'" I say. "It kind of ruins the mood."

"Are you at all concerned that she's going to be, well, stuck with you?" Carlisle asks, like the dream-killing, Bambi-eating animal he is.

"Carlisle, I'm sure Bella will come to love Edward as much as we do," Esme says, stroking my shoulder soothingly.

"As much as you do? No one could love him as much as you do," Carlisle looks at Esme indulgently. It's true, Esme loves me. "The rest of us actually see him realistically." Thanks, Carlisle. Fucker.

"Edward, don't listen to him," Esme says to me. "I'm sure everything will be just fine."

"You guys are being a little Oedipal," I say. "I'm going to go back downstairs." I cast another look at the trembling, sweating mess that I've pinned all my future hopes on, and head back down to the other room full of people who are going to pick on me.

"Hey, Emmett just had a great idea," Alice says, as I enter the living room. I do an exaggerated double-take and clutch my chest.

"Seriously?" I say.

"Shove it, Romeo," Emmett says. "Here's what I think. We can use Swan's twitter to make it sound like she's still coherent."

"That's actually a decent idea," I say, flopping myself down next to him. "What else do we do?" I ask Alice, whose visions have become so clear and coherent she's no longer the equivalent of one of those fortune-telling fish. You know, those little red plastic pieces of garbage that you sit in your palm and watch them flop around.

"Well, you're going to call Ryan at 8 in the morning and tell him that you and Bella won't be in for a while. He'll be mad and you'll probably lose your jobs, but at least with this note Charlie won't send a posse to find you and your balls." Alice holds up a note that Jasper has forged.

Since it has the potential to save my frigid, glittery, underutilized testicles, I grab it and read it.

_"Dad,_

_I know this is really sudden and I am sorry to worry you, but Edward and I have decided to get married._

_We tried to keep our love a secret, but we just couldn't do it anymore. I'm sorry I've been so moody these last few months. It was just so hard trying to deny my feelings for him._

_Everything will be better now. I will call you soon._

_I love you and please don't worry, Dad._

_Bella"_

"I don't get it," I ask Alice. "Why would we have to hide our relationship?"

"Well, you wouldn't," Alice says, shrugging. "But young people do goofy, dramatic things, and this was a better solution than faking her death. This way she has the possibility of staying in touch with her dad."

"How is that possible?" Emmett asks. He's been trying to hack into Bella's Twitter account.

"He's dating a woman whose kids sprout fur," Alice responds. "He's going to have his horizons opened up pretty soon here."

"Well, good," I say, smiling for the first time in hours. "Thanks guys, I appreciate this."

Emmett stares at me. "What?" I ask.

"You just smiled and thanked someone," he says, his voice rising. "I don't think I've ever seen you do that."

"He's happy," Jasper says, not looking up from his computer.

Huh," Emmett says, looking at me curiously. "I don't think I've ever seen that."

I take a moment to think about what Jasper said. I guess, underneath all my anxiety about whether this Bella-fiasco is going to work out, I feel…happy. I actually feel pretty optimistic for a Cubs fan. I think it's a combination of the fact that Bella is going to be forced to deal with me for an extended period of time (by which I mean, forever) and the result of the unspeakable internet hacking that Jasper is doing (which involves a Las Vegas marriage license).

"Look!" Emmett exclaims. "He's totally smiling! Rose! Get in here! It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen!"

I'm too cheerful to let even Emmett get me down. But I do feel like I need to go back and check on Bella, even though it's only been like twenty minutes. It's going to be a long three days.

Satan'sMySupervisor Merry early Christmas! It's been awhile since I've been on here. Satan's toned it down a bit lately.  
>1218/11 11:23 am

AngelBBQ Satan'smySupervisor ! Where the heck are you? Ryan called me in to work since you AND Satan are out at the same time! Coincidence?  
>1218/11 12:01 p.m.

Satan'sMySupervisor AngelBBQ maybe….  
>1218/11 12:05 p.m.

Satan'sMySupervisor AngelBBQ I'm sorry you had to work for me…  
>1218/11 12:06 p.m.

AngelBBQ Satan'smySupervisor You owe me! What is up with you and Satan?  
>1218/11 12:09 p.m.

Satan'sMySupervisor AngelBBQ We might have…eloped. : )  
>1218/11 12:11 p.m.

AngelBBQ Satan'smySupervisor WHAT? OMG! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU! HOW LONG HAVE YOU 2 BEEN "SECRET LOVERS," LOL!  
>1218/11 12:13 p.m.

Satan'sMySupervisor AngelBBQ Do NOT get that song in my head! ; ) It was kind of unexpected.  
>1218/11 12:14 p.m.

AngelBBQ Satan'smySupervisor Not by me! He told me he liked you but…that bastard! I can't believe he didn't tell me!  
>1218/11 12:17 p.m.

Satan'sMySupervisor AngelBBQ Don't be mad at him, I wanted to keep it a secret.  
>1218/11 12:20 p.m.

Satan'sMySupervisor AngelBBQ I gotta go have a honeymoon, I will send you pics soon! Xoxo  
>1218/11 12:22 p.m.

AngelBBQ Satan'smySupervisor Later! Give Satan my love and tell him I wanna have a talk with him when he gets back!  
>1218/11 12:24 p.m.

I'm lucky that my family is feeling so excited about our new member that they are willing to do all of the petty running around it takes to fake this whole thing, because I really just want to stick to Bella's side. Not that there's much to see, but it makes me feel better.

There is a sticky couple of moments when Charlie comes out to talk to Carlisle. Carlisle just does his best to convince Charlie that he didn't know anything about our little forbidden love affair that really was in no way forbidden.

"I just don't get why they thought they had to take off," Charlie says to Carlisle and Esme over a cup of coffee.

"Edward has a flair for the dramatic," Carlisle says. "I'm sure that this is his doing." Thanks again, Carlisle. Dick.

"Well, Bella certainly has her quirks," Charlie seems eager to prevent Carlisle from putting all the blame on me. I like my new father-in-law.

It's a confusing but cordial visit, and Alice is able to give me enough notice that I have time to smuggle the vampire-to-be out to the cabin. I'm sort of enjoying being able to hold onto her, so I dawdle out there for a while, until Rose starts thinking about how creepy I'm being with an unconscious girl. I'm positive that Bella will feel ambivalent about our "relationship" when she wakes up.

Three days drag by so slowly I wish I could die. Again. It feels like one of those indie films where couples talk about boring stuff and then stare at their dead cat together.

Carlisle and Alice won't even talk to me anymore because I bugged them so many times.

It's Tuesday afternoon, five days before Christmas, when Alice rushes into the room where I'm holding Bella's hand in one of mine, and reading that book with all the dwarves and incest and stuff with the other.

"She's about to wake up," Alice says, excited. I try to see how Bella's going to react in Alice's head, but I can tell that there are multiple possible outcomes. It's like getting two radio stations at the same time. Confusing.

I put my book down and run my free hand through my hair.

"Do I look okay?" I ask. Alice looks at me and smirks. Then she reaches out and smoothes down my hair.

We watch Bella's face anxiously. I decide to let go of her hand. I don't want to be too presumptuous.

Bella's face, which has grown progressively smoother and paler, as if such a thing were possible, twitches like a person emerging from sleep. Her eyelids flicker and then open slowly, revealing the red pupils of a newborn vampire. Her eyes slowly focus and her eyebrows dip slightly in confusion.

Then, so fast even we are surprised, her upper body shoots up and her eyes widen dramatically as she opens her mouth and addresses us with her dulcet, melodious voice.

"What the fuck is going on?"

_**a/n: Thank yous and big, muscly moving men and well labeled boxes to Betham for beta'ing this mess. **_

_**Also on the "I owe you big time" list is MissMaj of the Wordy Bitches for her delightful rec on Sunday Selections. I was going to link it here but then it occurred to me that I didn't need to link my recs because you guys are already reading it, right? You've already drank the koolaid. But, do check out the site at . It's very funny and perverse in all of the best possible ways.**_

_**Additionally, I think I answered like 10 reviews. Sorry. : ( I am why we can't have nice things. Thank you for all the RTs, reviews, encouragement and general niceness. Speaking of which, if you did decide to give me a review I guess you have to sign in now? I'm getting a lot of "Anonymous" reviews and that can't be **__**that**__** popular of a name, right?**_

_**xoxo**_

_**JuJu**_


	15. On the Job Training

**a/n: I don't own it; I just mess with it.**

"What the fuck is going on?"

Bella stares at Alice and me. Alice and I stare back at Bella. Then I look at Alice and give her a gesture with my chin to encourage her to speak. Alice stares back at me and then gives me a glare. "_Talk to her, you idiot!" _she yells in my head.

"Um," I hum, looking at Bella. "What do you remember?"

Bella frowns for a second. "I remember being at the bowling alley…" She looks down, trying to remember. "I got mad at you." She looks back up at me sharply, clearly recalling what a jerk I am. Great. It's quite possible for vampires to lose a lot of the memories of their previous life during their transformation. Go figure Bella would forget the freak that attacked her, but remembers my endless character flaws.

I'm also having this weird twitchy feeling in my hands, and I realize that I _really_ want to touch her. Stroke her hair or hold her hand; I don't know why the impulse is so strong now, but she's just so _pretty._

"Yeah, I, uh, made you pretty irritated." I shrug my shoulders. She looks at me for a minute, an expression I can't decipher on her face. Then her lips part like she's going to say something, but suddenly, in that ultra-fast vampire way, her hand shoots to her throat.

"I am so _thirsty_," she says, looking to Alice. "Was I sick? Why am I here?" She looks down at her body again. "I don't feel like I was sick."

"Listen, Bella," I start, not sure how to tell her. I guess I should have given this some thought over the past few days. Poor time management, right? "You're _different_ now," I say.

"You got attacked," Alice says. "Do you remember?" Bella shakes her head.

"You got attacked and something happened to you. We couldn't stop it." I add. Bella looks at me with concern.

"Oh, man, this is poor timing," Alice says, mostly to herself. I realize what she's talking about and shake my head. Emmett and Rosalie are back.

"What's that smell?" Bella asks. She is sniffing the air curiously. Typical new-vampire ADD. I can't tell what she's talking about until Renfield runs into the room, clearly alerted to the smell of a newcomer. Then I see in Alice's head what is about to happen.

"Emmett! Rosalie! You have to get up here and help!" I yell and jump up on the bed just in time to hold Bella back from going after Renfield.

"This is so gross!" she yells, clawing at my arms and struggling against me. "Ugh! Why do I want to eat your dog? What's wrong with me?" She is sounding seriously alarmed.

Emmett and Rosalie get to the bedroom. "Alice, grab Renfield and go lock him in the garage," I yell over my shoulder. "Help me with her!" I say to Rosalie and Emmett.

We get Bella settled back down on the bed, conveniently situated partially on my lap with my arms around her, and she stares with horror at the door Alice ran out of. "I just tried to eat your dog!" she says. "I don't eat dogs!" She looks at Emmett and Rosalie. "Hey. I went to high school with you two," she says, suddenly calmer as she gets distracted. Rosalie gives her a little wave and Emmett cuffs her on the shoulder.

"How's it going, Bella?" Emmett asks her casually. She looks at him, perplexed. Then she looks over her shoulder at me. She feels so right in my arms. It's weird.

"I'm not quite sure," she says, surprisingly calm. Emmett looks at me.

"You haven't told her yet?" he asks. "What were you waiting for? Your anniversary?"

I glare at Emmett, giving him a quick shake of my head. Really, I hadn't thought about having to tell her _that_ part either.

"Bella…" I pause again, not sure of what to say.

"Are you going to let her go?" Rosalie asks me. I glare at_ her_ this time.

Bella jerks away from me, as if just now becoming aware of her position on my lap, giving me a quick, confused glance.

"Will you guys tell me what's going on?" she asks, looking around the room at us. Alice comes back up the stairs with Jasper in tow.

"They haven't told you?" Jasper asks her. Bella shakes her head. Oh, no. There's no way I'm letting that leather-pant wearing, vampire lover-boy be the one to tell her.

"Bella, you're a vampire," I say, moving around on the bed so I can see her face. She looks at me blankly for a minute and then laughs. I try to laugh with her, but then I realize that I don't know what's so funny.

"She doesn't believe you," Jasper says. Bella just keeps laughing.

"I'm serious," I say. "You are a vampire. You got bitten by a vampire outside the bowling alley, and we had to let you change."

"You might want to mention that _we're_ also vampires," Rosalie says, examining her nails. As if she has cuticle issues or something.

Bella just laughs again. I shrug at Rosalie. She turns to Emmett. 'Go get some old-ass picture of Edward. Like that one from San Francisco."

I totally know which one she's talking about. "Rose," I whine. "I hate that picture. I was only wearing that tie because Esme bought it for me, and you _promised_ not to take any pictures."

In the meantime Emmett has run out of the room – vampire speed – and run back in. As he appears before Bella again she is so startled she jumps several feet backwards into the headboard and smashes it. Not how_ I'd_ like to break a headboard, but whatever. At least she might believe us now.

Emmett holds the picture out to Rose, who holds it in front of Bella. Bella takes her eyes off Emmett to look at the picture. It's this horrible picture of me in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. The thing is, it's very clearly _me_ in a hideous tie and it's clearly only like 25% of the Golden Gate Bridge behind me, as it was under construction.

She looks back at Emmett. Then she points to the picture. "That could totally be photo-shopped." She points at Emmett. "But that thing you just did? What…"

I interrupt her. "If I was going to photo-shop a picture of myself in 1935, why would I be wearing that horrible tie? No one picks the worst picture of themselves to photo-shop. They pick one where they look good." Bella looks at me skeptically.

"I don't know _what_ you're capable of, Edward," she says, shaking her head slightly. Bits of wood from the headboard fall into her lap. She looks behind her. "Did I do that?"

"Yeah, " I say, leaning forward to pick some wood off her shoulder. "You're a vampire." Bella turns back to me and looks into my eyes, and all of a sudden I'm babbling senseless crap. "We're vampires. We're all vampires together," I hear myself say. I wince. "I'm sorry, that sounded really dumb." I rub the back of my neck, glancing down at my twitchy want-to-touch-Bella hands, embarrassed.

Then I look back at her. She's still just staring at me, but she doesn't look disgusted by what a total idiot I sound like. In fact, she looks…kind of dazed and I can see she's leaning into me slightly.

"Well, let's go get some chow." Emmett interrupts our stare-fest. Like a bastard.

"Emmett!" Jasper snaps. "They were having a moment." Bella looks at Jasper with a look of horror.

"We were not having a 'moment,'" she says, pulling back from me. "Whatever it was, it was not a 'moment.'" She looks at Emmett. "So we're going to go eat some people?"

"She still doesn't _really_ believe us," Jasper tells Alice.

"So she just woke up craving terrier, and she's suddenly strong enough to smash headboards, and she thinks she just fell asleep?" I ask. Bella glares at me.

"You don't need to talk about me like I'm not here," she says, clenching her perfect little jaw at me. God, I'm a sap!

"If you start paying attention to what we're saying and stop being silly, I'll stop talking about you like you're not here," I say, folding my arms across my chest.

"You two are either making me want to throw up or…nope, you're just making me want to throw up," Rosalie says.

"Vampires can vomit?" Bella asks, grinning at us. Mood swings, seriously.

"Yeah, what do you think I did after I had to try all those pastries for the shop?" Alice asks her. Bella looks a little stunned.

"So, you guys are all vampires," she says. I look at Jasper. He nods at me. "She's starting to believe us," he says. Bella looks at him.

"Now, you being a vampire," she points at Jasper. "I can see that. But Edward?" She looks at me again. "I don't know. You wear loafers." She frowns and rubs her throat again.

"Come on, Kiddo," Alice pulls on Bella's arm. "Let's go eat."

"People?" she asks. I shake my head. "No, we don't eat people. We eat animals."

"Oh," she says. "So _that's_ why I wanted to eat your dog." She shudders.

"Well, people would smell good, too," Jasper says. "We just try not to eat them."

"I mean, we're not _monsters_," Rosalie adds. We make our way downstairs. Bella seems a little too calm.

"Are you okay?" I ask her.

"Yeah, uh, I think so," she says, but she seems a little stunned. "I guess I'm supposed to be mad at you, but I'm just…not. That's actually a little more disorienting than the whole vampire thing, I think."

"Well, I'm glad you're not mad at me," I grin at her and her walk falters a little. I grab her elbow. It feels divine, even for elbow-touching. Which is about as racy as the action gets for me, sadly.

I don't think it really sinks in for Bella until Alice helps her track and kill a deer. That's the point at which she realizes that this isn't a dream and that she really has been turned into a vampire. Frankly, I thought she was going to be a little more excited about it, given her love of _phony_ vampires, but she seems to be a little surprised by the fundamental mundaneness of our lives more than anything else.

"So, you're vampires and you have jobs and pets and you don't eat people," she says to us as we walk back. I'm still hanging right behind her but she's ignoring me, I think.

'Yeah, although Eddie had a 'rebellious phase' where he killed people for a while," Emmett opens his big trap.

"Well, Emmett had a 'I have no willpower' phase where he fucked up and killed some innocent people just because they smelled good," I sneered back at him. "At least_ I_ killed murderers and rapists."

"How did you know?" Bella asks. "I mean, how could you be sure that they were guilty?"

"He reads minds," Rosalie chimes in. Bella just nods. She's taking all of this a little too calmly.

"That explains a lot," Bella says. There's a good sixty seconds of silence while I wait for her to elaborate.

"What does that mean?" I finally ask her, moving so I'm walking abreast of her.

"Well, it explains why you wrote me up all those times," she says. I continue to look at her blankly. "If you could hear all the stuff I was thinking about you. You know, like that you were a total closet case and that you dressed like a tool."

"He can't hear you, Bella. Edward can't read your mind." Alice whispers to her from the other side. Bella winces.

"You thought I was gay?" I ask.

"Why were you such a jerk to me, then?" Bella is getting upset at me again. "You were totally persecuting me."

"I was, uh…" I look at Emmett for help. After all, it was his idea to try and get her to quit. He pretends he can't see me and speeds up.

"Your blood smelled really good to him and he was trying to protect you," Jasper tells her.

"You couldn't have thought of a more mature way of dealing with that?" Bella asks, her face twisting with irritation. "I mean, how old are you? Six?"

I don't really have a good answer for her, so I just sort of stare at her, shrugging my shoulders.

We get back to the house and Bella is clearly eager to get away from me. She's having a hard time making eye contact with me.

"You don't have any clothes I can change into, do you?" she asks Alice, tugging on her deer-stained clothes.

"We got some of your clothes from the Chief's and put them in Edward's closet," Rosalie says, because now is apparently a good time to let _that _cat out of the bag.

"Since you're…" Emmett waits in the doorway for Bella to look at him to finish his sentence.

"Emmett!" I growl. I make a slashing gesture across my throat, indicating what I'm going to do to him if he does what he's thinking about doing.

He looks at me. "Oh, ixnay on the arriage-may?" he says, and then he runs out of the room. I look at Bella tentatively.

For about the seventh time today, she stares at me blankly.

"Bella?" I ask, gently. I really don't like this whole "not being able to read her mind" thing.

"Married?" she asks, pursing her lips slightly.

I nod.

"To you, the worst boss I ever had," she clarifies.

I nod again.

"While I was turning into some kind of a…yuppie, vegetarian vampire," she says.

Nod.

She sighs.

To be honest, I was expecting worse.

**a/n: Thanks to Betham for taking time out of being busy and important to beta this mess. Seriously, my punctuation skills leave something to be desired. Especially since this chapter was all dialogue.**

**Secondly, some of you got my review replies (YES, you heard that right, REVIEW REPLIES) from my alien, robot-porn alter-ego instead of my vampire crack-fic alter ego. Oops. Sorry. I fail at the internet in general. **

**Thank you so much for reading and reviewing, etc. **

**xoxo**

**JuJu**


	16. Corporate Culture

**a/n: You guys remember that part about me not owning it? Still true.**

"So, you guys just told everyone that Edward and I _eloped_?" Bella asks. We are sitting around the living room. Carlisle has filled Bella in a little about his background and some of the basic vampire rules. Like don't tell anyone about what you are and stay out of the sun unless you want to attract a lot of uncomfortable attention. The sparkling thing really just amuses the hell out of Bella. She doesn't mention the "M" word again until now.

"It was the only thing I saw working," Alice says. She shrugs at Bella, who looks confused. So Alice explains her gift.

"If you can see the future, why couldn't you see the other vampires coming?" Bella asks, clearly as perplexed as I am by Alice's non-gift.

"Exactly!" I say. "That's what I've been saying this whole time. Your 'gift' sucks big-time."

"Watch it, chief," Jasper growls at me. Alice pats him on the arm.

"It's ok," she says with a wince. "He's right. My gift has never been this _glitchy_. I can't figure it out." She turns back to Bella. "It was the only thing that your dad wouldn't freak out about. If you had disappeared on your own, he would have been worried."

"Am I going to be able to see him again?" Bella asked, clearly confused. We had just told her that she couldn't see any of the people she'd known in her old life.

"Eventually, yes," Alice says.

"So Edward and I decided to elope, and just never come back to town?" Bella frowns. "I mean, who does that?"

"Edward, and people desperate enough to marry him," Emmett pipes up. I flip him off.

"I resent that, Emmett," Bella says. "I mean, I'm pretending to be married to him. Does that make me desperate?"

There is silence while we all digest the fact that she said, "pretend." Then Carlisle clears his throat. But his, I'm sure, delicate clarification gets pre-empted by Jasper.

"It's not pretend," he says. "You guys are married. Legally. Filed the paperwork myself. Although, I guess you could go to court and say you never signed the paperwork because you were infected with vampire venom at the time." Jasper shrugs at her.

She won't look at me. She actually hasn't _really_ looked at me in like three hours. I mean, her glance will kind of flicker by me every few minutes, but she won't really look at me. Or talk to me. I look at Jasper. He winks at me.

"Well, I'm going to go…go…" Jasper's voice trails off and Alice interrupts. "We have to go work on that _thing_." She gets up and pulls on his arm. Jasper kicks Emmett's foot as he's walking out of the living room.

"What the hell…" Rosalie elbows him and she gets up. "Come on, Em," she says. "Let's go work on the truck." She and Emmett are working on Bella's truck. If you ask me, the only thing her truck needs is a new truck. But I'm glad they are evacuating. My whole family has picked up on Jasper's unsubtle effort to give us some "alone time." I'm not sure how that is going to manifest, though. I mean, Bella could either continue to be calm and civil, or she could totally freak out on me.

"So, what do you do while you're sitting around not sleeping?" Bella asks me. She is picking at the seam of her pants. You know, not looking at me. Frustrating.

"Well, I read a lot," I say. "I play the piano. Watch movies. Go running in the woods." I get up. "Speaking of which, you might want to either put on some headphones or go for a run with me." She looks up at me curiously.

"They're all going to start having sex here in a minute, and you'll doubtless be able to hear them." Her face takes on a look of alarm, and she gets up and eyes the hallway to the front door.

"It's what they do." I say, shrugging.

"I'll go for a run with you, if you don't mind?" she says.

"Of course not," I say, pleased that she's finally talking to/looking at me.

We head outside and take off into the woods. I am hyper-conscious of how she's doing. She seems pretty controlled for a newborn. Funny that someone so emotionally volatile in her human life would be so calm as a vampire. After a while she slows back down to a walk, and I match her pace. She looks at me curiously again.

"Is this what it's always like for you?" she asks. "You know, the hobbies, having to leave the house while they…" She seems sympathetic. It could be a trap.

"That's why having a job is nice," I say, with a smile. She gives me a pained look.

"I feel guilty that you had to leave the store to pretend to be with me. This must be uncomfortable for you."

I shrug. I don't really want to start telling her how it's worth it if I can worm my way into her good graces and/or bed. That might be a bit forward.

"Why don't you have anyone, you know, in your, uh, non-life?" She is embarrassed to ask me this.

"It's not like I just meet lady vampires all the time," I say. "Besides, they would have to be committed to not eating people and not have really annoying thoughts." I tap my head to remind her about the whole mind-reading thing. She nods.

"I guess you don't have vampire dating services or anything," she says with a smile. "Plus, I'd be willing to bet _everyone's_ thoughts are annoying in some way or another."

"Bella Swan, you _are_ a misanthrope, aren't you?" I grin at her.

"It's Bella Cullen, right?" she says, with a flutter of her lashes. And right there, I swear she's flirting with me. Just…her smile and the look in her red eyes and…gah! I stare at her.

And then, proving that they are the biggest bastards to ever ruin a pair of jean shorts, I smell the wolves.

"Crap!" I say. Bella is startled and she looks around. "The wolves are coming," I say. "We've got to get back to the house so we can meet them as a group." I reach out to grab her hand, like that's a totally normal thing to do, intending to pull her back in the direction of the house. But the minute our hands touch, there's this thing that my insides do, like they're warm and itchy at the same time. She pulls her hand back abruptly and looks at me with alarm.

"What was…" she starts to ask, and I shake my head.

"We've got to get back to the house," I say. I'm feeling a little rejected that she pulled away, but we've got time to deal with all this later.

One thing Bella and I have now is time. And awkwardness. Because aren't all great relationships built on time and awkwardness? Maybe throw in a little "having to listen to other people having sex" for ambiance? At least it's a bonding experience. Like cheerleading camp.

We run back to the house and I make a big deal about stomping my feet and yelling, "Incoming!" and "Wolf alert!" as we walk into the house.

Esme and Carlisle come down first. Esme's blouse is buttoned crooked. Gross.

"How many?" Carlisle asks. I listen to the approaching minds for a moment.

"Three?" I guess. It's hard to tell what with their hive-mind thing and all. One thing I do know, I've only met one of them before. Sam is their leader and the oldest. I was hoping that Leah would be with them, since she seems relatively sympathetic to us, but she's not.

Alice and Jasper come downstairs. I look into Alice's head to see if she knows how this will go down, but the contents of her head look a little hazy and she's frowning.

"It's the wolves," I say to her. "They're the ones clouding your vision."

She considers it for a minute and then nods. "That makes sense," she says. "They had to have been around or involved every time my visions went haywire."

"So we have no idea what they're doing here?" Jasper asks.

"They're here about Bella," I say, adding: "Duh." Jasper thinks about punching me.

"Does someone want to tell me what's happening?" Bella asks. Oops. I guess we forgot to tell her that her ex-boyfriend sheds on the furniture.

"There is group of shape-shifting wolves out on the reservation," I say. "They're coming out here…well, they think we changed you and they're pretty interested in killing us."

She laughs. "Oh, is that all?" she asks. "And when will the mummies be showing up?"

"The question is, can Bella be around them or is she going to want to eat them?" Rose asks.

"I suspect that the smell will ruin her appetite; but, maybe if we have her wait until we've calmed them down and then we stay in a position to stop her if we need to?" Emmett says this. It's so smart I have to just stare at him for a minute. "What?" he asks.

"Nothing," I say. "You just look so much like Emmett. I mean, I know you can't be, because that was a really smart thing you just said. But the resemblance? Uncanny."

"Bella, wait here until we call for you, ok?" Rose pats Bella on the arm, and we walk out to face the wolves. Who are still in the process of pulling on their jean shorts. In the middle of winter. Tacky.

The one I know as the alpha, Sam, is murmuring to another tall, dark-skinned man. "Remember, you said you'd stay calm, Jacob." He puts his hand on the other's shoulder. Jacob shrugs it off.

"Don't tell me to stay calm when they've obviously done something to Bella," Jacob sneers at Sam. I can see in his head that he thinks we might have eaten her. I am looking forward to this.

"Sam, to what do we owe this honor?" Carlisle says, smiling.

"Carlisle, this is Jacob and Seth," Sam speaks respectfully. Carlisle nods to the other canines.

"I'm assuming you're here about Bella," Carlisle says. "She is absolutely fine. My family is prepared to take care of her."

"What did you do to her?" Jacob yells. Sam gives him a warning look.

"Bella was attacked by a nomad, a vampire that we were not acquainted with. She was bitten. We weren't able to get to her before the venom had entered her system."

"So you let her change into a vampire?" Sam asks. Carlisle nods.

"You should have let her die!" Jacob interjects. I can hear the angry noise that comes from Bella from inside.

"She can hear you, you know," I say. Which suddenly aims all of the wolf-boy's attention at me. "Anyway, we would have had to kill her to stop the process. Is that what you're suggesting that we should have done? Remember, she can hear you." I wink at Jacob, who scowls at me.

"We have no way of knowing whether you're telling us the truth about this nomad," Sam says.

"You could ask Bella," Alice suggests. Sam eyes her thoughtfully, considering her suggestion. Jacob rolls his eyes.

"Like she hasn't been convinced to lie to protect them," he says, still waving his paws around angrily.

"Why don't I go get her?" I suggest, to Sam's approval. He gives Jacob another warning glare.

I go in to find Bella gripping a throw pillow a lot tighter than she needs to fluff it. I gesture to her to come out and join us. She looks pissed and, since it's not directed at me, I'm pretty excited about it. Seeing her rip into someone who isn't me is going to be awesome.

Jacob narrows his eyes at her as she walks out. She ignores him and gives Sam a tight smile.

"Bella, we were concerned about your disappearance," he says. There is a real gentleness to his voice. I can hear in his thoughts that he considers her to be a friend.

"Sam, thank you," she says. "I don't want you to blame Edward and his family for what happened to me. It's obviously inconvenient, and I'm sure my dad is worried, but they didn't do it."

"You don't have to lie to protect them," Jacob interrupts. Bella's head whips around to look at him. Jasper and Emmett get a little closer to her, just in case.

"What do you know about protecting people?" she spits at him. "What business is it of yours what I do?"

"Bella…" Jacob the Dogface Boy kind of whimpers at her.

"No, Jake," she says. "You don't get to pretend that you care what happens to me. You broke up with me." She turns back to Sam. "Sam, I appreciate your concern, but I'm fine. Try to look after my dad. Hopefully, I'll be able to see him soon." Bella looks at Alice. Alice nods hopefully.

Sam dips his head respectfully and thanks Carlisle for his time. The wolves take off, Jacob shooting a look over his hairy shoulder, which Bella intercepts with a glare that would strip the paint off a house. I grin at him.

"You know, Bella, " I say. "The wolves do this thing called 'imprinting.'" She looks at me blankly while Alice makes the universal signal for "throat cutting" over her shoulder. Which I chose to ignore because I'm an idiot.

"What's your point?" Bella asks, crossing her arms. Again, my family makes themselves scarce.

"Well, imprinting is involuntary, they can't control it. I suspect that Jacob probably didn't want to dump you, he just imprinted on Leah." Ok, maybe the expression "dump you" might have been a bit blunt.

"I was going to thank you for defending me," she says, her eye twitching. "Whose side are you on?"

"I just…" I stop to consider exactly what I was thinking, defending Jacob to her. It would have definitely been better to continue the whole "united against your ex-dogfriend" thing.

"I just don't know what's wrong with you sometimes, Edward." She's a little pissed off. She takes a step towards me on the front porch. "It's like you have no clue what a jerk you can be sometimes." I freeze as she takes another step towards me. She is clenching her fists, and I suspect she's going to punch me.

She stops less than an arm's length away from me and just glares at me, shaking.

Then, suddenly, this weird, cringy look comes over her face and she's grasping my arms and nuzzling her face in my neck.

I gasp and stutter. "Uh, Bella?" My hands are floating in the air, wanting to grab her but I'm scared. I have no idea what's happening.

"Ugh, I have no idea why I'm doing this," she murmurs into my neck, tilting her head and moving her open mouth up to my jaw. Her lips are on my jaw. I'm freaking out.

"I don't even like you," she whines, running her hands across my chest. "Why is this happening?"

I try to have respectful hands, considering her dilemma, so I put them behind me and grab onto the only thing I can reach. Which ends up being the house.

Bella jerks away from me when she hears me put my fist through the front door. She looks at me, wide-eyed and gasping.

"I think," I pant. "We should talk about mating. I mean, talk about vampire mates."

She nods and then clears her throat. "Yeah," she says. "Good idea."

**a/n: The biggest thanks to Betham for her beta-work. The next biggest thanks to you guys for reading, reviewing, re-tweets, etc. I am blown away by your kindness and enthusiasm.**

**There's probably only two chapters left of this (which means I'll be done in September? Lol) Additionally, I have signed up to donate pieces to Fandom4LLS and Project Team Beta's Back to School fundraiser so if you have requests, let me know. Thanks again for your patience and kind words!**

**xoxo**

**JuJu**


	17. Sexual Harassment

_**a/n: I don't own it.**_

"So, vampires have this…involuntary response when they meet the lady or gentleman vampire that they are supposed to…uh, be with…forever." I was pleased to see Carlisle struggling to talk with Bella as much as I had. She just looked so horrified.

"Forever?" she asks him skeptically, and then looks at me. "The reason I want to accost your son is because he's, like, _my boyfriend_ for the rest of eternity?" Bella looks less than thrilled by the prospect.

Carlisle shrugs and nods, looking at Bella apologetically.

"Well, we could have just let that guy kill you," I huff. "It's not like I knew you were going to want to _molest_ me all the time." I try to make it sound like it's an inconvenience.

"Like this is one-sided?" Bella asks, her voice becoming shrill. I try to look nonchalant, but that asshole Carlisle pipes up.

"No, the mate-bond is mutual," he says. I glare at him.

Bella looks at me, wincing slightly. I shrug.

"Well, this is awkward," Carlisle says, getting up and running out of the room in a manner lacking in his usual dignity. Bella is still looking at me.

"What? It's not like I did this on purpose." I flap my hands around ineffectually.

"It's just that…Please don't take this the wrong way, but I think you can be kind of a _jerk_," she says.

"How do you take that the_ right_ way?" I ask. "Besides, you're not exactly my idea of a dream date. I mean, you're totally hostile and you're so full of self-pity, I'm surprised you have room for internal organs."

"Do I even have internal organs anymore?" she yells back. "Plus, you're inconsiderate and you dress like my grandfather."

"I'm older than your grandfather. I'm allowed!" I stand up and continue to wave my arms around a lot. It's kind of a good way to express all this frustration without breaking furniture or myself or my brand-new reluctant unlife-partner.

"Oh, good," Alice says, breezing into the living room with two suitcases. "You guys are all ready to go!"

"Go where?" Bella says, obviously completely unused to the oddity that was living with a psychic, albeit a crappy one.

"Jasper can't deal with all the…" Alice waves her hands around in the air. "Drama. Plus, you guys are about to smash up Esme's living room."

Bella looks sheepish. Alice winks at me. _It'll be better if you two can spend some time alone._

"I'm game," I say, smiling. "Where are we going?"

Alice packs us off to a cabin that she rented near the Canadian border.

"Do you always drive like this?" Bella asks me about an hour into the drive. It's about midnight and there's almost no one on the road. I'm exceeding the speed limit. No biggie.

"Yeah," I say. "Why?"

"I was just thinking that if you got pulled over in the middle of the night, and the highway patrol gave you a breathalyzer or something…I don't know, wouldn't your breath come up all funny? Like, filled with vampire pheromones and totally frosty?"

I just look at her for a minute, while driving, because that's like the dumbest thing anyone's ever said to me. Then I tap my forehead.

"Mind reader, remember?" I say, raising an eyebrow in the most patronizing manner possible. "It's a built-in radar detector."

"Oh," she says. "Well, it'd be even worse if they tried to give you a blood test, right?"

"What's wrong with you?" I ask. She stares at me anxiously.

"I'm, um, a little nervous about being alone with you," she says. "When I'm nervous, sometimes I just say dumb stuff."

"Why are you nervous?" I ask, confused.

"This is just weird," she says. "I mean, we're going to go spend time alone in some cabin together, and we don't actually like each other, but we're supposed to be…you know…"

"Yeah," I interrupt her. "It's weird." I don't say anything for a minute, and then I slow down a little bit. Like two miles per hour less.

"Thank you," she says, looking at her lap.

"You're welcome," I say. Then ten more minutes of awkward silence go by.

"So, I'm thinking what we need to do is come up with a plan," I say. "Maybe if we agree to certain…ground rules, then we won't tear each other's heads off. Although," I add - in an extremely ill-thought-out decision that I will quickly regret - "It wasn't exactly my _head_ you wanted to tear off back there on the porch. More like my clothes."

"Well, you can be assured _that _won't happen again," she says, folding her arms across her chest.

"No!" I yell. She looks at me, startled by my outburst. "I wasn't criticizing! It was certainly more pleasant than the alternative."

"Well, it seems like a bad idea for us to be…indulging in that particular part of the 'marriage' when we can barely speak civilly to each other."

"Yes, of course," I quickly agree. Even though I really don't.

"So, what are you suggesting?" she asks.

"Well, for a start, we can try to be more polite to each other," I suggest.

"We could try," she says. "We could also try to find things that we appreciate about each other. You know, try to develop an actual foundation for a marriage."

"That's an excellent idea," I say, giving her a smile. We have this brief, friendly smiley moment with each other, before she notices that I'm not looking at the road and nags me about it.

We get to the cabin in time to avoid the dreaded "Sparkly man driving down Interstate 5 fiasco", and get settled in. By which I mean, I put all my clothes away in the proper drawers and Bella just throws her suitcase onto a chair and flops down on the couch.

"So," she says to me, as I sit down carefully in one of those chairs that look like it's made out of twigs. "You want to go first, or should I?"

"Go first?"

"Saying something nice about me," she says with a grin.

"You have a good sense of humor. Even when it's aimed at me, I think you're pretty funny," I say.

"Thank you," she says, seemingly flattered by my compliment. That wasn't that bad, actually.

"Your turn," I say. She frowns for a minute.

"You're really smart. I really appreciate how well-read you are," she says. "Of course, that's probably just because you have more free time than anyone else on the planet."

"Thanks. I think," I say. "'Ok. My turn. 'You're totally hot' doesn't count, right? I mean, it has to be about your personality or whatever?"

She looks flustered for a moment. "You think I'm totally hot? But that's just because of the mate-thing, right?"

"No, I've actually thought you were totally hot since Hallow…"

My admission is cut off by Bella landing in my lap and pressing her lips against mine. Hard.

I kiss her back, thrilled that she's feeling affectionate towards me, but a little scared that she's going to hurt me, frankly.

"Bella…mmph…" I try to talk to her through the kisses. Finally, I grab her arms and push her a few inches away. She reroutes her attentions to my ear.

"I thought we were going to…oh, Jesus, Bella…I thought you wanted to wait until…nevermind…" I change my mind about being the voice of reason as she gently - and then not so gently - bites my earlobe.

"Forget waiting," she mumbles into my mouth as she kisses me again.

So we don't.

As I proceed to enjoy my wife on several surfaces of the cabin, I decide not to tell Bella that I've never done this before. I mean, it seems like a prime opportunity for her to either mock me or decide to be sensitive and thoughtful and change her mind. There should be some sort of mystery in a relationship, right? Plus, I figure that Emmett will tell her soon enough. Frankly, I'm surprised he hasn't already.

It goes pretty smoothly with the exception of some property destruction. The twig-chair is the first to go, followed by a rug and, somehow, I accidently send Bella's knee through the screen of the television. That and the complete obliteration of a really nice pair of khakis and a sweater that Bella might be able to wear as a cardigan now are really nothing compared to the joy I have at finally having the experience that everyone in the world but me has sworn was the best ever. It was the best ever.

We're lying on the floor of the cabin's main room, which is a little dirty, to be honest, and I am acquainting myself with a mole she has on the back of her neck when she speaks again.

"Edward?" she says.

"Mmmh?" I say, not wanting to risk the intimacy we are having by saying any words. Words are generally what get me in trouble.

"I guess I've had a pretty bad attitude about all this," she says, rolling over to look at me. She's stunning, even with little shreds of carpet in her hair and her socks still on. I guide her arm away from the broken bits of television screen.

"I mean, the circumstances haven't been ideal…and we've had our differences…" I am trying to not even make eye-contact, because, let's be honest, I can even fuck up _eye contact_. "But, if you think about it, I always really liked vampires." She brushes her hand through my hair and then pulls herself up to a sitting position. I follow her and wrap myself around her as she continues talking.

"I've always thought vampires were really cool…and it wasn't like I was that successful as a human." She smiled at me and I made a tremendous effort not to agree with her. That would have been ill-advised, I think.

"So, it might be a 'just had great sex' thing talking, but…"

I interrupt her. "You thought it was great?"

"You didn't?" she asks. She pulls away from me and looks like she's right on the edge of being mad at me again.

"No. I mean, yes," I stutter. "I mean, I have no basis of comparison but I certainly thought it was the highlight of my last hundred-something years."

"You have no…" she starts to say, and I realize that I am about to totally get in some kind of enormous trouble, so I do the only thing I can think of. I kiss her again.

It works.

At some point in that month, I remember having heard the thoughts of some random, uninteresting human as they contemplated how avoiding your relationship issues by resorting to sex was fundamentally unhealthy and could be disastrous to the survival of a marriage. I must have heard it at some point in the 80's.

That might be true, but I figure that Bella and I have a couple of things working to our advantage. First of all, we really can't break up. We're freaking mated-vampires for Christ's sake! They don't just decide to "split up." It's impossible. Secondly, Bella and I have endless time and flawless memories. Which means that issues never just go away. We always get to the big stuff eventually. It just goes a little easier when we can get our aggressions out on the furniture or surrounding woods, and regard each other through a post-orgasmic haze while we discuss why I always say the wrong thing or why she's such a self-pitying baby sometimes.

It wouldn't work for everyone, but it works for us.

_**a/n: OMG, I am SO sorry. Just…all the things happened. I can't even start.**_

_**Thank you to Betham for beta'ing this and thank you guys for reading and the reviews and all that jazz. I swear, the epilogue will be in no more than ten days, seriously. You can come repossess all my yarn and nail polish if it isn't.**_

_**xoxo JuJu**_


	18. Workplace Romance

**a/n: I don't own it, I just mess with it. And I know it took a while but you ever get those ideas that sound great in your head but on paper they are lame-sauce? Yeah, the first epilogue had to go in the fic-dumpster.**

The video store was her idea. Actually, starting a business was her idea but the video part was mine. She said it was just the kind of archaic idea I would come up with and it would never be a success. I reminded her that we weren't exactly worried about money and that we may as well do something that we both enjoyed and we had already done the book thing. So, a video store it was.

To be honest, the first thing we did after emerging from the "honeymoon" cabin was some traveling. But then my family started making plans for the decennial relocation ritual and were making whimpering noises about missing us _and _her father had married into a family of lycanthropes, so we decided to go back home for a while.

So when the family resettled in Canada, my bloodsucking bride and I started a ittle video store we called "Immortalized on Film." I came up with the name Because I'm clever like that.

Plus, I felt like there was a niche for a place that wasn't one of those lame corporate chain stores that carries all the blockbusters and is staffed with eighteen year olds who have never seen _Citizen Kane_. We decided to open a place that carried obscure titles and staff it with someone who had seen almost every movie made in the 20th century and could make recommendations. I'm talking about myself, by the way. But Emmett fits the bill, too.

So it's a typical day at the store. Bella is stocking the shelves and I'm leaving mean phone messages for customers who haven't returned their movies and Emmett's sitting on the couch towards the back of the store watching Chinese soap operas.

There are a couple of customers looking at the selection, and Jasper is reorganizing the documentaries. It's his _thing._ One month he does it by director, another he does it chronologically. It's impossible for anyone to find anything, but it makes him happy.

I look at the clock and yell: "Emmett, you told your wife you were leaving an hour ago. Get lost!"

"I want to finish this show," Emmett yells back without looking up.

"Gentlemen," Bella says, glaring back and forth between the two of us. "Customers," she reminds us, gesturing with her head between the two groups of browsers.

"Sorry, Bella," Emmett says apologetically. I quickly look back down at my phone list.

"Emmett McCarty, your wife will be here in three minutes," Alice says, coming onto the floor from the office. She has one of those fancy label makers in her hands. She smiles at a customer as she walks it over to her husband.

"Shit!" Emmett yells, hitting the button on the remote and getting up and hustling towards the door with a look of profound panic.

"Tell her I was helping Jasper!" he says. He is pointing over the documentary section, prompting Jasper to throw his hands up in the air.

"I am not lying to your wife again for you. I just replaced all my tires." Jasper shakes his head emphatically.

"Coward," Emmett hisses as he slips out the door.

Alice walks over to the counter and picks up the phone from in front of me no more than three seconds before it rings.

"Immortalized on Film. How can I help you?" she asks. She listens for a moment and then responds: "Yes, we have _Conan, the Barbarian_, Mr. Bryant, but you're not going to enjoy it. You'll enjoy _Terminator _a lot more." She listens for a minute. "Have I ever misled you?" she asks. A tiny frown forms on her face. "Remember the time I told you not to watch _Alien Resurrection_? What about when I tried to convince you to get _Shawshank Redemption_ instead of_ I.Q_.." She listens for a minute more with a smile on her face. "Okay I'll put _Terminator_ on hold for you… no, it's okay… see you later!"

"I don't know why they don't just trust me?" she tells me with a wink.

There's a young couple browsing action movies right on the other side of where Jasper is working and I could hear from his thoughts he was getting irritated. They had been bickering quietly about what to rent for several minutes now.

The woman has a copy of _Sophie's Choice_ in her hand and the man is pulling _Black Hawk Down_ off the shelves

"You've seen that at least seven times already," the young woman says, pouting.

"Yeah, but it's better than that sobfest," the man responds to her, pointing at her movie. Jasper stands up.

"Can I make a suggestion?" He asks them. "Have you seen _Casablanca_?" It's got war stuff _and_ romance. You'll _both_ like it."

The woman smiles at Jasper, but the man makes this huffing sound.

"It's black and white, right? I totally don't feel like watching a black-and-white…" the man's voice trails off and he gets this distracted look on his face. "You know, it's the weirdest thing. Actually, I do feel like watching a black-and-white movie." He rubs the back of his head, frowning. "It's funny. I've ever felt quite like that before."

"Great! We'll take it!" The woman interjects dragging the man with her up to the counter where, seriously, I already have a copy of _Casablanca_. Because I _am_ that fast.

"Come on, Jasper, we've got to go take Renfield for a walk before he eats the new loveseat." Alice comes over and tugs on his arm.

"Tell me again why Carlisle and Esme don't take him _with them_ on vacation?" Jasper asks.

"They're trying to have some _alone time_," she says to him. "They can't do that with Renny barking at them every time they close the bedroom door."

"There's something wrong with that dog," Jasper says. "I thought when we got him fixed he would stop doing that. I swear he's jealous of Carlisle." They walked out the door.

"Maybe he's jealous of Esme," Bella muses.

"That's great, Bella," I say. "Are you saying the dog is gay?"

"Well, he would come by it honestly," she responds. "He does spend a lot of time with you."

"He's probably afraid of women because you and Rose are so emasculating," I retort, smiling at her. Bella laughs and then notices we still have a customer.

"I'm so sorry," she says to the young man. "It's a family business. We're a little casual sometimes."

"It's okay," the guy answers. "If I had to work with my sister we'd fight all the time, too."

I accidentally make a kind of choking sound and then glare at the guy because he's thinking he's making some kind of romantic progress with my wife. Who he thinks is my sister.

"Actually, that's my husband," she says to him sweetly.

The guy winces. "Sorry, I just thought…"

"It's okay, we do bicker a little bit." Bella smiles at him again.

"You have a great selection here. A whole section of detective movies? I'm impressed." The guy changes the subject because I'm giving him the evil eye.

"Yeah, that's my wife's doing," I say, coming out from behind counter. "She said she ordered them for me, though. I don't know why. She must have me mistaken for someone else." I frown.

"You like detective stuff?" she asks him. "I'm a big film-noir fan myself. Have you seen _The Postman Always Rings Twice_?"

"I haven't," he says. She scans the shelves in front of her and pulls out a movie.

"No, no, no," I say, shaking my head. "I have no idea why you insist on doing that."

"What?" my wife asks innocently. Like we haven't had this discussion before.

"Recommending the Jack Nicholson-Jessica Lange version over the John Garfield-Lana Turner version? It's like I don't even know you." I purse my lips at her.

"I do it because it's just _better_," she says with a shrug. "It's more visceral. Grittier."

"They totally screwed up the ending," I say, flatly. "_No one_ thinks that version is the better one."

"I do," she says with a smile. "Just because something's really _old _doesn't mean it's _better_." She sticks her chin out at me defiantly.

"I'm not saying the older version is always better," I say, adopting that really pedantic tone that I know makes her mad. "I mean, look at _The Fly_ or _Scarface_. Those are excellent remakes. I just happen to disagree with you about _Postman_."

"You know, I noticed you guys have a whole section of vampire movies…" the guy interrupts, desperately trying to change the topic of conversation.

"Do you like vampire movies?" I ask him. He nods, relieved at the civility of my tone. Sucker. He has no idea what's going on.

"I particularly like _The Hunger_," I say, casually, pulling the movie in question off the shelf and handing it to him. I can hear my wife make a choking noise behind me.

"Are you kidding me?" she asks. "That is the corniest, most ridiculous excuse for a lesbian sex scene ever made. Why don't you just give him _Love At First Bite_, or something? At least that movie wasn't pretending to not be a joke." My lovely wife's eyes are getting dark in that way they do when she's angry or…other things. But I digress.

"Would you suggest the _Blade_ series?" I ask her, raising an eyebrow at her. "Or perhaps we're feeling art-filmy today and would recommend _Shadow of the Vampire_?" I glance at the young man with a smirk. "She's cute, isn't she?"

That did it. My lovely bride grabs the movies in question, throws both copies of _The Postman Always Rings Twice_ on top and shoves them into the man's hands.

"Here," she says. "Take them." She starts to hustle him towards the door. "Return them…whenever."

The man stutters at her all the way out the door that he hasn't given us his name, that this might be too many movies for him, that we are the weirdest video store clerks he's ever met.. No matter, she pushes him out the store with a tooth-baring smile and locks the door.

"Now," she says, turning to me. I smile. "What exactly was that?" she says. She advances on me slowly, like a predator.

"Idle discussion about movies?" I ask, trying hard to control my smirk.

"Very funny," she says. She reaches out and grabs my lapels.

"Be careful with the windbreaker," I caution her. "It's 'Members Only.'"

"Fuck your windbreaker," she snarls at me, tearing it off.

As my wife's lips meet mine and she crushes me against the counter, I contemplate a couple of things.

First, I am going to have to replace the counter again. Wait, scratch that, I am going to have to replace the counter and the computer again. This is getting expensive. I wonder if they make those big bulky plastic cases for laptops that they make for iPhones. It might be a good investment. Come to think of it, a big rubberized counter might attract attention but we seem to go through them frequently.

The second thing that occurs to me is that I am a profoundly lucky man to have found someone who makes me as happy, in none of the same banal, boring ways, as Bella makes me. I mean we may break a lot of things, fight like siblings, disagree on movies, books, cities, television shows, music and everything else that might matter, but we never disagree on this. That there's no better way of ending a good fight about anything than destroying some furniture. And clothing. And electronics. And maybe alienating a customer or two. And maybe violating laws regarding public indecency a couple of times.

"Bella?" I mumble around her mouth as I pull her off the counter and onto the floor. (Knocking over a rack of new releases)

"Yeah," she breathes, biting my neck and pulling at my belt.

"I love you," I say, pulling on her hair.

"Me too," she whimpers, kicking a shoe off. Which unfortunately goes through the front window.

It's a good life.

**a/n: First of all, I want to thank BelleDean and Darcysmom at Project Team Beta for helping with this chapter. They did advise me against the sentence fragments but I loved them so I kept them. The dialogue tags and excessive quotation marks were another story and you can thank them for sparing you. Additionally, the lovely and talented Betham beta'ed this for the preceding 17 chapters so she deserves applause (and a vacation). **

**I KNOW I'm going to forget to thank some people who have recc'ed this all over the place but I'm going to try to put a list together here. Enormous Thank Yous to Katinki, Darcysmom (AGAIN!), Purelyamuse, The Wordy Bitches and Raum and the people who kept nominating me for Fic of the Week on the Lemonade Stand. Seriously, that happened like a ton of times. Also, a big non-creepy hug to Vicanlp for making me the coolest banner evar as well as Timelights for making a gorgeous banner for the one-shot that began this entire mess.**

**AANNNDD…Thank you to all of you who retweeted me, reviewed and were gracious about my 2% review reply rate, recc'ed me (and I missed you above) and just generally enabled my insanity. I have some more stuff planned so I'll hopefully see you soon! xoxo JuJu**


	19. Smells Like Teen Spirit

"_**Smells Like Teen Spirit," or "The Time Edward Went to Cheerleading Camp"**_

_**a "Hardcover Paranormal Romance" outtake**_

_**by badjujube**_

_**Rated T**_

_**Disclaimer: Twilight and it's characters are owned by Stephanie Meyer.**_

_**This was inspired by a suggestion that 3sunrises gave me that I write about the time Edward went away to cheerleading camp. It was part of the fandom4LLS compilation.  
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I was busy putting my records away in my new room when Emmett came in. He watched me for a minute.

"What is your system? It's not alphabetical." He frowned at the shelves.

"Autobiographical," I said, placing Neil Young's "Harvest" on the "Contemplative" shelf. "By emotion"

"So you are organizing your music by the emotions you have when you listen?" Emmett asked.

"Yep," I said, picking up The Cure's "Disintegration" and putting it on the "Nobody Understands Me" shelf.

"You need hobbies outside the house, Edward," Emmett said.

"We're in Montana, Emmett," I answered. "What hobbies am I going to take up? 4H? Rodeo? There's no bull in this state that's going to let me ride it."

"Well, I have an idea…" Emmett smiled at me. Then I saw what he was thinking.

"No. Way."

"She would totally owe you," Emmett pleaded. "So would I. Please, Edward?"

"Why?" I asked, horrified by what my brother was asking of me.

"Carlisle says it's too risky unless you go with her and make sure she's not attracting too much suspicion." Emmett put his hands together in a prayer position. "Pleeeeze?"

"No. End of story. There is no way." I put down my Peter Frampton album. Which had been a mistake in itself.

But then Rosalie started in on me. And then Esme and Carlisle joined in. For the next three weeks my whole family hounded me about it, reminding me about all the things Rosalie had missed out on as a young woman, how she would do the same for me if there were something I really wanted. When all I really, desperately, wanted was to _not_ do this.

But they wore me down. Mostly, I just couldn't stand the sad, disappointed, hurt look on Rosalie's face

My family had asked some embarrassing things of me in the sixty-odd years we had been together, but this was the ultimate in embarrassing requests. But I found it hard to say no to Rosalie once she really got going on her "robbed of a normal life" thing.

And so it was that I found myself in the parking lot of the Thompson Falls High gymnasium with ten sleepy teenage girls and two decidedly unmasculine teenage boys in October of 1991, on my way to a delightful weekend at cheerleading camp.

My argument that they hadn't even had cheerleading when Rose was a teenage girl held no sway. Especially after Carlisle reminded me that they hadn't had fuel-injected engines, prog rock, and headphones, either. I was a particular fan of headphones, had been ever since they had come on the market. In fact, I had rather a nice collection of them before I got married. But that's another story.

You might ask yourself why Rose insisted on going to cheerleading camp. It was certainly a question that I had asked. I wanted it to be about artistic expression or about athleticism or getting in touch with the young women of this generation. But in reality, it was a combination of Rose's vanity and Emmett's perversion. Still, there I found myself.

Coach Reynolds blew that abysmal whistle of his and we got into the school bus to Coeur d'Alene. It wasn't enough that I had to join these twelve of my fellow students, but I would soon be subjected to a whole camp full of shrill, earnest, hormonal adolescents all pumped up on Madonna and Crystal Lite. Oh, joy.

I made Rose sit next to me. All the other kids knew we were siblings, but at least this way none of them could molest me in the confines of the bus. I will admit to hoping that it would drive off a cliff, however, as awkward as it would have been to explain our miraculous survival. I got bored of Rose's ruminations upon her lip gloss, however, and I got out my CD player to listen to some music.

"Chopin, huh?" A voice came from across the aisle.

I looked over to see Brett, one of my roommates for this week of torment. "I play violin," he said.

I nodded to him. Rose elbowed me.

"Piano," I said. He smiled and said "Cool."

"Edward, right?" I nodded. "I've got connections in Coeur d'Alene." I just looked at him blankly, wondering who would brag about such a thing. "You know, to get some booze."

I looked at Rose. She nodded, raising an eyebrow at me.

"Great," I said. "That'll be...major.". Brett nodded at me.

To my colossal relief, he was actually more attracted to Rose than me, but I still had my concerns about Keith, the other male cheerleader. He had some less than wholesome ideas about what he'd like to see me wearing and more of a liking of dance music than I felt comfortable with.

The rest of the drive went smoothly, despite the fact that the bus did not burst into flames, forcing the trip to be cancelled.

The camp was being held in a somewhat remote set of cabins a ways out of town, which was nice because that way Rosalie and I could still eat while we were here, with minimal traveling. As long as the hairspray fumes and raucous cheers of our companions didn't frighten all the local wildlife away, that is.

We were ensconced in a half dozen charming rustic cabins and told to be in the main building at noon for the opening address.

One of the cretins in my cabin put on some music and I was treated, again, to Brian Adams explaining that everything he did, he did for me. Vomit. I put my headphones back on.

Luckily, I had the foresight to remove them before answering the query of one of my cabin-mates, lest he think I read minds (ha ha). His name was also Brian, as was everyone's in those days, and he was asking me if I was dating that hot blonde I had shown up with.

"No, she's my foster sister," I answered. "She has a boyfriend, though. An enormous, slightly unstable boyfriend."

Brian shrugged and changed the subject to some of the other girls at camp while Brett tried to change the CD and Keith fidgeted with his hair in the mirror.

We completed our male grooming rituals and went out to the main building. I sat next to Rosalie again as we listened to schedules, clapped through motivational speeches and finally saw a performance by the camp coordinators that appalled me.

"I'm going to have to…" I looked at Rosalie. She nodded at me with a smile.

"Rose," I hissed at her. "I cannot put my hands there! No way! Not on you. Not on any of these girls. It's perverse!"

"Edward," she whispered soothingly. "It's like dancing."

"Dancing doesn't involve having ones hands on a young ladies…nether regions!" I hissed back. "You realize that eighty percent of the people here want to have sex with me? If I'm constantly grabbing at their genitalia…nothing good can come of this."

"Edward," Rose said, shaking her head at me. "I guarantee you, these people will get to know you and they will get over their uncontrollable urges. Your personality is an excellent chastity device."

"Thanks," I said, slumping in my seat. There was no getting out of this, no matter how worried I was about my person being molested. It would attract too much negative attention. Plus, Rose was right. People's libidos did tend to cool off after exposure to my decidedly anti-social personality.

We spent part of the evening in an execrable game of charades, something mind readers really shouldn't be forced to play, if you ask me. But I could see that Rose was having a good time, so I persisted.

I finally was able to retreat to the cabin and was looking forward to spending some time enjoying the quiet, pretending to sleep.

My cabin cohabitants had other plans, however. Brett's "connections" had scored him some alcohol and the other guys in the cabin, with the exception of yours truly and another guy who said that it was "Satan's poison," proceeded to get drunk on a noxious combination of Jack Daniels and Mr. Pibb.

So as not to attract any more attention than I needed to, I joined them and pretended to get drunk with them.

We discussed girls in extremely ungentlemanly terms and then made up insane escapades we had embarked upon in the previous summer. Or, I listened while they made stuff up and said "She's ok," about every girl they mentioned.

It got chilly (for the humans) and, while the other guys got out their sweatshirts, Brett pulled out a plaid flannel shirt.

"What the hell?" Keith said, laughing. "You steal that off some farmer?"

"No, man," Brett said. "This is totally the style."

"In Iowa," one of the other guys said, and they all laughed drunkenly.

"Like we're not in Idaho," I said. Brian and whatever his name was looked at me with scorn.

"Alright, Farmer Joe," Brian said. "You stay here with your farmhand buddy. I'm going to go see if I can't get some action."

Brian staggered off of the deck and wandered in the direction of the girl's cabins, the two others following him.

"I have a question for you." I looked at Brett, who slipped the Vanilla Ice CD out of the boom box and replaced it with Pearl Jam's "Ten." "You seem like a relatively normal guy. Why are you cheerleading?"

Brett laughed. "I could ask you the same. Except I'm not sure how normal you are."

"What do you mean?" I asked, concerned.

"I mean, you have no interest in either the girls or the boys at school, and yet - you're here?"

"I'm doing a favor for my sister," I said. He nodded.

"I'm here to get closer to Rachel," he responded. Rachel, Rachel…. I had no idea who he was talking about. But then her face flashed into his thoughts and I remembered her. Quiet, brunette, not the brightest young woman ever. I shrugged.

"Cool," I said. "I like your CD, by the way." I gestured towards the boom box. "Pearl Jam is ok."

"Thanks, man," Brett said. He got up and dusted himself off. "I'm going to bed. See you in the morning, Edward." I waved and felt just slightly less pissed off about being here. At least there was one other person who didn't like Madonna.

The next day descended quickly back into the abyss of popular music and shrill teenage voices from whence it had come. No matter how much effort I made to not touch teenage girls, it was impossible to perform many of the idiotic and pointless maneuvers that were required of me without doing so. I was pleased, however, to see that Rose continued to be thrilled by her experience. The girls were being friendly to her, and they had even engaged in a host of rituals that Rose had been unable to participate in as a young woman, like painting each other's fingernails and something called "MASH." A ridiculous exercise in fortune telling that I would be reminded of when Alice joined us later.

Unfortunately, I was to be married to Britney Wallace and we would have 6 children, live in a motorhome and drive a Jaguar. Fat chance, Britney. And how would we have cared for six children in a motorhome? And why a motorhome when we could afford a Jaguar? It made no sense.

The following evening brought a renewed interest on the part of my roommates to infiltrate cabins inhabited by girls. I decided, since he had saved me from the groping fingers of the above-mentioned Britney, that I wanted to do Brett a favor and attempt to arrange a liaison with the remote but fetching Rachel.

I snuck up to her cabin, listening for an opportunity to speak to her or otherwise manipulate the situation to my benefit. All I could think was, how cool I would be in the eyes of my new "friend" if I were able to secure him a chance with the girl he liked.

Since she showed no signs of coming out of the cabin, I realized that I would have to actually contact her myself and knocked on the door.

A young woman I was not acquainted with answered the door. I bowed.

"May I please speak with Rachel?" I asked. She looked at me coyly.

"Which one?" she asked. I was stuck. I had not anticipated that there would be more than one Rachel within, and I had no idea what Brett's paramour's last name was.

"Um, the one who goes to Thompson Falls?" I asked, naming our shared high school. The young woman disappeared, to be replaced by the Rachel in question.

"Hi, Rachel," I said, bowing again. "I'm Edward Cullen. I was wondering if you would be interested in meeting someone who is interested in you….romantically,, that is, later by the wooden beaver statue."

Rachel, who I will remind you was not terribly bright but at least kept her mouth shut most of the time, nodded shyly at me and blushed.

"Excellent," I said. "One hour?" I asked. She nodded again and I gave her and her companions a wave as I trotted off the deck of their cabin, eager to give Brett the news of my largesse and skill at arranging things.

Brett agonized for an excessive amount of time about whether to wear the flannel. I insisted that he stay true to himself and even assisted him in the creation of a mix tape of his favorite grunge-rock songs to give to Rachel.

Imagine my surprise when, not ten minutes after their scheduled rendezvous time, Brett came back with the clear imprint of someone's hand on his pale face and a disgruntled look.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I kissed her," Brett said, sitting down on his bunk and beginning to pull the tape out of his cassette with irritation, piling the brown ribbons onto the ground.

"And?" I pried.

"She was under the impression that you were meeting her," Brett said, with a glare at me. I was horrified. How could I have read this so wrong?

"Brett," I said, holding up my hands. "I have no interest in Rachel. I didn't even know who she was before you pointed her out."

Brett nodded sadly. "I know," he said. "It's not your fault. She was a total bitch about it, though. She even insulted the flannel. I was wrong about her being a cool girl."

He finished destroying the tape and then gave me a smile. "Hey, at least I don't have to do cheerleading anymore."

Brett cheered up after we paid a visit to Rose. She stole him a few gross wine coolers, and then she and I packed him off to bed before talking over the events of the day.

"Well, I appreciate you doing this with me, Edward," she said. "You better go make sure he doesn't choke on his own vomit."

If you were to ask me why I love my sister I would tell you any number of things. There are the things I respect about her: her compassion for others, her love for Emmett, her passion for justice, and her championing of the underdog. But if you had asked me in the 1990's, I would have described the look of shame on Rachel's face when she had to attend breakfast that morning at cheerleading camp, her head half-way shaved and a large, dastardly mustache drawn on her face with permanent marker.

Maybe it was mean of Rose to do that. But it made Brett happy.

Cheerleading just wasn't in the cards for us, though. We ended up having to leave Thompson Springs pretty quickly after there was unusually sunny weather that winter, and we missed so much school and work that it became suspicious. I think Rose had gotten kind of tired of it, anyway. But she was thankful for the opportunity and I was repaid generously years later when I got myself into my own romantic misunderstanding. But that's another story.

What we both got out of the experience was that rare and dangerous experience of making friends with humans. Our ability to coexist with humans would definitely come in handy when I fell in love with one. But I digress.

_**a/n: Thanks for reading! xoxo JuJu**_


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